Hell Ain't A Bad Place To Be
by 0Warrior0Maiden0
Summary: Pain is energy, but so is love. I should know, one feeds me, the other gives me life. I never knew what life was until my family saved me. I would do anything, give anything, to protect them. I love them as fiercely and loyally as they love me. Alison Winchester is a Prangeni, a creature that feeds off the energy of pain. Follow her ups and downs as the Winchesters save the world.
1. If you want blood

I screamed as the blade sliced into the skin on my upper arm. It didn't really hurt that much. He'd certainly done worse but maybe if I could fool myself into thinking it was bad he wouldn't do any worse today.

The hand gripping my forearm released me, and with a disdainful sniff my father walked away, shutting the door and leaving me in the darkness.

My father is a prangeni, a creature that feeds off the energy of pain. My mother was human, meaning that I am only half-prangeni, and it seems that I have more control over myself than my father does, even though I am only 24 years of age. The need to feed on the pain and suffering of others can become almost unbearable, though feeding often does help. The purest form of pain is physical, that's why my daddy is mean to me, if he cannot find a suffering human to feed on.

He talks often of the old days; before pain relieving drugs were commonplace, and how the prangeni were once numerous and prosperous. Those days are long gone though, now we hide, capture and feed until the prey can bear it no longer and surrenders to death. Humans make good meals, but they are fast, hard to catch, it's why so many prangeni have taken to feeding off each other, as my father does to me. Though pain relief doesn't work on Prangeni, the pain can be fed upon, but the suffering prangeni will still feel the pain, unlike a human. It makes us pretty much an unlimited food supply.

I felt my way in the dark to the other corner of the closet my father keeps me in, where a few ratty old blankets serve me as a bed and curled up, clutching at my arm to try and stop the bleeding. The blankets are too dirty to try and use them as bandages, but hopefully my blood would start to dry soon and seal the cut that way.

There was a time, long before I was born when my father was young, when humans prayed to prangeni, when we were worshiped and adored for what we could do for humans; for our ability to take pain and suffering away. Prangeni used to receive the prayers of the suffering, they knew that we could help them, but with the arrival of pain-killers came the fall of my kind. We are not the kind and benevolent creatures we once were; food is too scarce for that. The humans have forgotten us react to our abilities with fear and mistrust instead of gratitude.

I'm startled from my reflections by the sound of shouting, my father's voice is raised in shock, anger, fear and alarm, the echoes of his distress reaching me where I huddled in my closet and causing the hunger in my gut to stab sharply. Then a shot rang out, loud and close and I screamed. My father's distress was gone, and my breathing was loud in the silence that followed. Heavy boots moved through the house, approaching my closet, I pulled the least holey blanket over myself and shrank back into the furthest corner, hoping to remain undiscovered by this unknown intruder, though I knew my scream had given me away.

The lock on the door clicked quietly, and light streamed into my closet. Through the threadbare blanket over my face I squinted upwards as the outline of a tall man reached towards me.

"It's okay, you're safe now."

The gruff voice was gentle, as was the hand that pulled my blanket away from my face. The man had dark hair, scruffy and untidy, and greying stubble covered his chin and upper lip. He looked to be somewhere in his thirties and the dark eyes in his handsome face reflected the deep and unhealed wounds of loss and grief which were calling to me, making my stomach rumble in displeasure. His brow creased in confusion he spoke again, "It's okay, Little One, the bad man won't ever hurt you again."

He took my hand and pulled me to my feet, leading me away from the closet. I was limping, my leg still badly bruised after my father had kicked me last week. The hunger was gnawing at me, begging me to feed from this man and his grief, but I resisted; doing so would alert him to who and what I was, this man had just shot my father, I wasn't safe yet, I had to get away.

"What's your name, Little One?"

He led me around the body laying at the foot of the stairs, keeping himself between it and me. I stared, my eyes wide and my blood rushing is my ears as the adrenalin raised my heart rate.

"A-Alison" I replied, my voice shaking from cold, hunger and fear. There was a pool of blood spreading slowly across the floor from my father's corpse.

"Well, Alison, it's all over now, I'm going to take you back to your parents. Can you tell me where you live?"

The voice was still gentle and reassuring as we left the house and he picked me up, sparing my bare feet from the cold hard ground. What could I tell him? This man must surely be a hunter! He still held the shotgun in his hand! I had heard my father muttering about hunters, about how they would kill any non-human, how they made it so much harder to feed. Now a hunter had caught and killed my father in our home, and seemed to think I was a victim, rather than a daughter. My life depended on him not discovering the truth.

I looked up at this indiscriminate killer, who was carrying me away from everything I knew and deliberately widened my eyes before bursting into tears.

* * *

The hunter took me to a motel. He'd mentioned taking me to a hospital and telling the police about me and I'd panicked, screaming that I didn't want to go. That he couldn't take me there. Fortunately he hadn't asked why, he'd just quickly agreed that I didn't have to go if I didn't want to and yes, of course I could stay with him.

The real reason I couldn't go is that a doctor would very quickly be able to tell him that I wasn't quite right. That I wasn't human; my heart rate too slow, my rate of healing too slow.

So, now we sat in the car, parked outside one of the motel rooms, this hunter and I. I was still crying quietly, staring into space, pretending to be in shock, while the hunter who had shot my father wrapped me in his jacket and pulled a first aid kit from under a seat. Wrapping a clean bandage around my arm and using a damp piece of cloth that came from a foil packet to wipe away at the blood that covered various parts of me, it stung as he ran it over any open wounds and I flinched. It took several cloths before he seemed to deem me clean. Then he wrapped an arm around me, rocking and murmuring reassurances in my ear.

My tears were not from grief, my father had been a monster and I was glad to be free of him, but I was afraid. Alone and in the company of a man who clearly knew how to kill a prangeni, I kept up my act of traumatised human child while desperately trying to think of how I would escape. I didn't know what I would do after that, where could a creature who feeds off pain and appears to be around 8 years old go that I wouldn't end up caught again?

A new flood of tears ran down my face at the thought and I shuddered in the hold of the hunter.

"Hush now, it's all gonna be alright, Ali. The monsters can't get you while I'm here."

We sat like that until I cried myself to sleep.

* * *

I awoke on a bed. The mattress giving way beneath my body in a way that blankets and floorboards just don't.

It was heavenly and I floated for a few minutes between sleep and wakefulness, drifting on this luxurious lumpy cloud. Soon noises started to permeate my sleepy state and I became increasingly aware of the spring poking into my shoulder blade.

"Daddy, who's that?" a quiet childish voice asked.

"Quiet, De, let her rest." The voice of the hunter replied softly, "She was held captive by the asura, he was feeding on her, we're gonna get her back to her family."

"The asura was bad." The little voice intoned solemnly. "Is he gone now, Daddy?"

"Yes, De, he's gone."

"Is she gonna be okay?" De asked, his little voice full of childish concern.

"I'm sure Alison's going to be just fine, De. We'll get her back to her parents, her Mommy must be very worried about her."

"My mother's dead." I muttered, rolling towards the voices and blinking my eyes open.

The little boy hopped down from where he was sat on the other bed and took my hand gently. "I'm sorry. My Mommy's dead too."

His green eyes were filled with a pain I knew far too well, and I gripped his hand as tightly as I dared, I didn't want to hurt him after all, and I know that I am much stronger than a human child would be.

"Well then, we'll make sure you get safely back to your Daddy." The hunter said, coming to kneel beside my bed.

I shook my head, "He's dead too. There's no one looking for me. Can't I just stay with you?"

This man clearly cared for his pretty blond son, with the rounded cheeks and the life in his eyes that couldn't be dulled even by grief. Maybe, if I could hide the fact that I wasn't human, maybe this would be the safest place for me? Hiding in plain sight?

It wasn't a long term solution, obviously, it would become clear fairly quickly that I wouldn't age the same as a human child would. The little angel currently holding my hand appeared to be about six years of age, but in three years time, he'd be nine, and I would appear to be nine too. It wouldn't take a genius to work out that if I'm older than him now, I ought to stay that way.

But maybe I'd get a couple of years of safety, and hunter's must travel quite a lot, certainly this one is staying in a motel at the moment, so he must travel to find his kills, and he takes his son with him. Maybe I'd find somewhere in his travels that would be safe for a prangeni child.

The hunter frowned at me, "No one? What about grandparents? Or an orphanage?"

I shook my head and decided to stay as close to the truth as was safe. "My father died in the house where you found me. And I have no other family."

I knew no one was looking for me. My father had told me many times that he was all I had, the only person in the world who gave a damn about me.

"Please, Daddy, can't she stay with us?" De had turned to his father with wide eyes, and was biting anxiously on his lower lip.

I tried my best to mimic his pleading look.

The hunter looked between the two of us, before he closed his eyes and sighed. "Okay, you can stay with us for now."

De jumped a little in place, clapping his hand in celebration before hugging me. I hissed at the sudden movement and the constriction around my ribcage. It had only recently stopped hurting to breathe after my father had kicked me in the chest a while ago.

The hunter reached out to us, "Careful, Dean! She'd badly hurt. She needs to see a doctor."

I shook my head back and forth, my dirty hair flapping around my face."No! You can't!" His eyes widened in shock at my vehemence and I thought quickly to come up with a reason. Other than not being human. "They'd take me away from you!" I sat up reaching with both hands for him and throwing myself forwards to cling around his neck.

He patted my back awkwardly, "There, there, it's okay. No one's going to take you away. I promised you're safe and I meant it, Ali."

* * *

The weeks that followed reminded me of the days before my mother had passed; they were happy weeks, filled with play and laughter. For the first time since my mother passed I was well cared for, my long hair brushed and clean, my tummy full and my clothes well-fitting and warm. The name of the hunter was John Winchester, and he was a good man. He had two son's; Dean, whom I'd met when I woke up, and Sam, who I'd met when _he_ woke up not long after. John Winchester loved his children with all of his broken heart.

It was this more than anything that made me believe in the goodness of John Winchester; when my father had lost his wife, I had lost my father, but John held on, loving his boys and trying his best to be a good father to them.

We traveled from motel to motel, from town to town; always there was a monster dead before we left. I began to look up to John the same way Dean did, Sammy was too young to know, but Dean knew what his father did, what he fought, the sacrifices he made for complete strangers without them ever knowing. Dean and I bonded over our hero worship of his father, and our combined efforts to look after little Sammy. The two year old was cute as a button, but quite a handful when he wanted to be.

At twenty-four, I may have the physical and emotional maturity of an eight year old, but I was able to handle situations as an adult might. I could cook, and I knew far more of the world than any human child could possibly, even Dean, who knew things no human child should ever have to.

I cooked dinner most nights and helped Dean with his homework when I wasn't searching the Lore to help John on his latest hunt. He started to leave us alone more and more, trusting me and Dean to look after ourselves and little Sammy, always leaving us with the words "Look after Sammy."

Eventually, I got comfortable. I stopped looking for places to go. Where is there anyway? I started to feed more frequently from the boys scrapped knees and on John's pain whenever he returned from a hunt that hadn't been as simple as he'd hoped.I was still afraid that John would get rid of me, if he were to discover what I am. So I learnt first aid, learning how to patch up all sorts of injury. I managed to sneak into parts of the public libraries that the librarians would have been horrified to discover me in, taking notes from medical tomes on the kinds of things I may need to know in future. Things about broken bones, cuts, burns, even poisons. Things that made my stomach turn. But I wanted to be useful, to prove that I am useful, so that when my secret was discovered, maybe John wouldn't take me out back and shoot me.

It was still a concern, however much John may treat me like I was his own daughter, he was still a hunter, and sooner or later he'd work out that I wasn't human. He might consider me to be a threat to his sons, especially with me having kept the truth from him for so long. He may feel it necessary to dispose of me the same way he did my father, to rid the world, and his family, of something not human.

At first my fear had faded as I lived in safety and comfort with this little family, but then my guilt started to grow. I disliked keeping a secret from these people, who I loved almost as much as I loved the memory of my mother. I was still scared though, of what John would do when he found out and the thought weighed ever heavier on my mind. I let things be for almost a whole year before I worked up the courage to tell him.

He'd stumbled in from a hunt gone wrong, his face pale from blood loss and blood dripping from his finger tips, leaving bright red dots on the cheap motel carpet. I'd pulled myself out of the bed where Sam and Dean were curled up sleeping peacefully, careful not to wake them, Dean in particular was a light sleeper. I helped John to a chair, peeled the ruined plaid away from his arm and given him a belt to bite down on while I poured whiskey over the deep scratches.

I was drawing the pain out myself as well, but he'd still be able to feel the alcohol stinging as it washed blood and goodness knows what else away from his arm. I left him the bottle while I fetched the suture kit and angled a reading light at his arm.

"Dad? I have to tell you something." I carefully threaded the needle and then pinched together the first of the claw marks I was going to sew shut. "That night, when you rescued me? The man you shot wasn't an asura, he was a prangeni."

"What makes you think that?" He grunted, before taking another swig.

I took a deep breath, trying to focus on stopping my hands from shaking. "Asura cause pain, prangeni take pain away. They feed on the energy of pain. In humans, it depletes the pain that the human experiences. Prangeni are meant to be good," I assured him, "they're meant to help humans, a mutually beneficial relationship."

"That man was causing pain," John insisted, staring at me with narrowed eyes, "he was hurting you."

"He was," I agreed, finishing the first claw mark and reaching for the scissors to cut the thread without looking up, "but only so he could feed on the energy."

I started on the second cut, carefully avoiding eye contact with the hunter whose arm I was repeatedly stabbing with a needle. Not that he could feel it, a combination of my talents with the whiskey he was drinking at a steady rate was numbing his senses. This was it; I had to tell him, and face the consequences whether they be abandonment or death. "I told you my father died in that house? You shot him, I'm a prangeni too. I'm feeding on you right now, dulling your pain like prangeni are _meant_ to."

I stopped stitching, resting my trembling hands against his arm and dropping my head as tears dropped into my lap.

"Please don't hurt me, Daddy. I didn't ask for him to be my father, I didn't want to be like him. He was a monster, Daddy, I don't want to be like him." My voice was small, the pitch raising without my control. My breaths were coming as gasps, and I screwed my eyes shut as I heard the gentle clink of the whiskey bottle being placed on the table. "I love you, Daddy! And I love Dean, and Sammy! I'd never hurt you, I've never hurt anyone! I swear! Please don't hurt me..."

I stopped my babbling as he laid a hand, heavy on my shoulder. "Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because you'll find out sooner or later; I don't age as quickly as humans do, and I've been feeding on your pain all this time." I hiccuped slightly and took a few breaths to try to steady myself, still looking down at my lap. "I want you to hear it from me, I don't want to hide any more. I don't want to keep a secret from you."

There was silence for a while, aside from my shuddering breaths as I tried to gather control of myself and stop my hands from shaking so I could finish sewing John's wounds.

"Why was your father hurting you?" Came John's voice, low and steady, despite the half empty bottle at his elbow.

"He was hungry, he could not find a food source, and he didn't love me anymore after Mummy died."

"Are _you_ hungry?"

I shook my head, "You're always getting hurt anyway, I feed on your pain, try and make it easier for you. It helps you to heal quicker too." I mumbled at my lap, the fear and adrenaline hadn't faded any. I was tense, tight as a bowstring. Part of me wished he'd just get it over with.

He was silent for a long time, just sat still. Still gripping my shoulder tightly.

This was it. Everything was going to change. Maybe he wouldn't kill me, but surely he wouldn't let me stay, wouldn't risk having a creature sleep in the same bed as his sons like I had done earlier that very same night. He'd send me away, drop me off at the nearest orphanage with the bag that contained the clothes he'd bought from a charity shop for me. The same clothes that were starting to wear out because I'd had them so long; Sam and Dean had each had several new sets of clothes in that time. They kept out growing theirs.

"Thank you for telling me." The hand on my shoulder let go, returning to pick up the bottle from the table. I glanced up at him, surprised and slightly chilled by how calm his voice was.

"You... aren't mad at me?"

He watched me carefully, his gaze calculating. "No," he said finally, "I'm very angry, but you aren't any different than you were yesterday, except that now you're honest. Which is an improvement. You've been here almost a year and my gut instincts have never told me that you're evil, or dangerous." He leant in close, the whiskey on his breath fanning across my face. "But let me make it very clear. If that ever changes, if I ever even suspect that you might be a danger to my boys, I will kill you the same as I did your father."

I was terrified, staring into his eyes. They were so cold and empty, I had no doubts he meant every word. He leant back, taking another swig from the bottle and said no more.

It took me a while to be able to move again, but eventually I wordlessly finished sewing up his arm. I returned to bed, shivering slightly, despite the two warm bodies already occupying the bed. I felt John's eyes on me in the dark and I huddled down under the blankets, wondering if I'd done the right thing.

Wondering if anything would ever be the same again in this safe little haven I had found.


	2. Pilot

Arguing voices woke me. I was curled up asleep in the passenger seat of the Impala, Dean's jacket covering me as a blanket. I sat up groggily, it had been a long drive from New Orleans and the rumble of the engine, the vibration of the wheels over mile after mile of highway always put me to sleep, but now the car was parked and I was alone in it.

I quietly pulled myself out of the car just as I heard my little brother ask, "Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?"

Smiling I made my way to the back of the car, it'd been a couple of years since I'd last seen Sam, though I'd phoned him often.

"I'm twenty-six, Dude" Dean was leaning over the boot of the car as I came up behind Sam, that boy had grown another foot it seemed.

"'Course he didn't; sent me with him." Sam turned to me with a smile and reached down to hug me, "You tall enough yet, Sammy?"

"Hey, Ali." He stood tall before releasing me from the hug, letting me drop at least a foot to the ground. It was our thing, the same hug we'd shared since he got taller than me when he was about 15 and I still looked about 12. I appear to be roughly 14 or 15 now.

Dean explained the case Dad had gone to Jericho for and, eventually, Sam agreed to come and help us look for him. On the condition that he be back by Monday. He'd been stressing about the Law School Interview for nearly a month now, and I was as determined as he was to get him back in time for it.

"Hey, Sammy? Can I come and meet Jess?" He'd told me so much about her, from the first "I've met this _girl_." through "Where do I take a girl on a first date?" to "How do I ask her to move in with me?" I'd been a phone call away for the whole thing.

He'd sent me pictures; the first taken on his phone from across the room, grainy and hard to make out of a pretty girl with wavy blond hair, photos of the two of them, smiling brightly at the camera, and one just that night, at a Halloween party, Sammy giving a low level, actually-quite-entertained bitch face and Jess dressed as a nurse kissing him on the cheek.

I wanted to finally meet the girl who'd captured Sammy's heart.

He gestured for me to follow and I scampered after him, grabbing his hand and swinging it between us. I used the contact to check for any pain, and found that, as I'd suspected, Sam was happy.

He'd missed his family; he'd been refusing to talk to either Dean or Dad after the night he'd left, despite my best efforts, but it wasn't as if they'd tried to rebuild any bridges either. It was why I hadn't called Sam and warned him that Dean and I were coming, I didn't want pride and hurt feelings getting in the way of having my family back together.

Jess seemed surprised to meet me, and after Sam disappeared into the bedroom to pack a bag we found that the conversation was stilted.

"I guess Sammy doesn't talk about us much?"

She shook her head, wincing and tugging at the bottom of her shorts.

"It's okay," I told her quietly, smiling softly, "I think he just misses us."

She bit her lip slightly, looking unsure before offering me a drink and excusing herself to go after Sam. I sipped the orange juice she'd poured for me and looked around their kitchen, it was small and none of the crockery, cutlery or appliances matched, but it was clean and brief glance I'd had in the fridge when Jess was fetching the OJ showed it to be filled with fresh produce, all the healthy vegetables and things that Sam and I had always enjoyed. Dad and Dean preferred a burger over a home cooked meal, though they'd eat just about anything you put in front of them so long as it wasn't a salad.

Yes, Sam was happy here, if I could just get him to forgive Dad and Dean for words said in anger and spend the holidays hunting with us, his life would be just as I'd always imagined his happy ending to be. Sammy wasn't like Dean and Dad, he didn't live for the hunt, Mum's death didn't haunt him as it did them. He was a good hunter, and I'd been surprised when he'd just quit, he enjoyed hunting and the life as much as any sane person could enjoy such things, but he didn't live for them. He belonged here, at school, with a girlfriend he adored and who clearly thought the world of him, and who hopefully did all the cooking; Sam had never been any good at it.

Sam breezed through the kitchen and I downed the last of the orange juice just as Jess called after him, "At least tell me where you're going!"

I left the glass by the sink and followed my giant of a little brother, grinning at Jess as I passed her, "Don't worry, he'll be back by Monday."

* * *

I jolted awake to Dean banging on the back window of the Impala, "You two want breakfast?" he called, holding up a chocolate bar, a packet of crisps and a couple of bottles of energy drink.

"No, thank you," called Sammy as I just wrinkled by nose at our brother, he hadn't gotten enough to share anyway, knowing full well that neither of us would eat that stuff if we could avoid it. "How'd you pay for that stuff anyway? You and Dad still running credit card scams?" Sam asked with a note of judgment in his tone and I frowned at him; he knew this life wasn't easy and sure as hell didn't pay a living wage.

"Yeah, well hunting isn't exactly a pro-ball career. Besides, all we do is apply, it's not our fault they send us the cards."

Sam and Dean argued the point a little further before Sam dropped it a picked a new fight, "I swear, man, you have gotta update your cassette tape collection!"

Dean and I shot him identical looks, "Why?"

"Well, for one, they're cassette tapes, and two, Black Sabbath, Motor Head, Metallica; it's the greatest hits of mullet rock."

Dean plucked the Metallica tape from Sam's hand and loaded it into the player, "House rules, Sammy, driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole."

"You know 'Sammy' is a chubby twelve year-old, it's Sam, Okay?" Sammy gripped as Dean started the car.

"Sorry, I can't hear you, the music's too loud" Dean grinned as we pulled away from the petrol station.

I just sat in the back, shaking my head. Remind me why I wanted my family back together again?

As we got closer to Jericho Sam phoned ahead to the hospital and morgue with a description of Dad, but thankfully they were no matches.

Dean slowed the car as we got close to an old suspension bridge a little way out of town, there were police cars dotted about and I promptly lay down across the back seat. Dean would want to question the police about what was going on, and having a fifteen year-old girl tag along never helped, it was best that I stay out of sight.

Sure enough Dean pulled the car over and reached across to the glove box, fishing out an ID, then inviting Sammy along, he left, our slightly wide-eyed brother following him. A few minutes later they were back.

"So?" I questioned without sitting up.

"Another guy disappeared, not a trace left behind. Cops don't have a clue, and nothing they can see linking the vics." Dean filled me in and Sam just gave him a dirty look.

Once we'd pulled away and driven down the road a bit further I sat up, placing a hand on the back of each of my brother's necks, pulling the sting from Sam's head and the ache from Dean's foot. "Not that I don't appreciate the breakfast, but must you always fight?"

"No" "Yes", they gave each other dirty looks.

I just sat in the back, shaking my head. Remind me why I wanted my family back together again?

* * *

We were walking through town, and I was on the lookout for somewhere I could get a decent human breakfast. Prangeni might not need much in the way of human food, but I'm not completely prangeni and I need both.

"I bet you that's her." Dean said, drawing my attention to a woman ahead of us on the pavement, putting up a missing poster. I carefully detached myself from my brothers and when they stopped to talk to her I walked a little further to a small café, glancing back over my shoulder as I entered and making eye contact with Sam.

I ordered food and a cup of hot chocolate, before settling into a booth facing the door. I didn't have long to wait, my brother's and two women entered the café, ordered coffees and sat at the booth behind me so I could listen in as they questioned the two girls.

The waitress came with my food, distracting me from the start of their conversation as I reassured her that I wasn't skipping school.

"Okay," Dean's voice called my attention back to the table behind me as I tucked in to my pancakes, "thank you, unsolved mysteries. Here's the deal, ladies, the way Troy disappeared, something's not right. So, if you've heard anything… What is it?"

There was a pause then one of the girls spoke; "Well, it's just, I mean with all these guys going missing, people talk."

"What do they talk about?" they asked at the same time. I grinned into my breakfast, I loved it when my boys talked in sync, it showed just how close the two were, and the fact that they still did it, even after years apart? Friggin' adorable.

"It's kinda this local legend, this one girl, she got murdered out on Centenial, like, decades ago. Well, supposedly she's still out there, she hitchhikes and whoever picks her up, well they disappear forever."

The guys thanked the girls for their time, paid for their drinks and left. Sammy meeting my eye as they did and making an L shape with his thumb and forefinger. I winked at him and went back to my pancakes. The two girls behind me talked for a bit about how Amy hadn't known anything about Troy's uncles, and how they'd seemed kind of young to be anyone's uncle, let alone the uncles of a 19 year old, Amy's friend announced that they were hot and would Amy mind if she made a pass next time they saw them and the two girls left the café giggling to each other and arguing about which of my brothers was more attractive.

I left soon after and made for the closest library as Sammy had told me to with his hand gesture as they had left. The boys were fighting over control of the desktop as I arrived.

"Dude, such a control freak." Not that Dean was really fighting Sammy on this one, partly because we were in a public place, partly because he knew as well as I did that Sammy had been raised on research. It was why he was doing so well at school.

"So, angry spirits are born out of violent death, right? Maybe it's not murder." Sam typed something, clicked, waited, and then clicked on the article, "This was 1981, Constance Welch, 24 years old, jumps off Sylvania bridge, drowns in the river"

"Say why she did it?"

I leaned over his shoulder, "She'd called 911 an hour before she jumped, she'd found her children dead in the bath tub."

Sam sighed, reading from a little further down the page, "'Our babies were gone and Constance just couldn't bear it' said husband Joseph Welch. "

"That bridge look familiar to you?" Dean pointed at the picture on the article, it didn't really, but Sam nodded and closed the window, logging off the computer. I followed them over to the mythology section, but the shelves were fairly bare, a couple of standard books on Greek and Roman legends, one on Christian lore and one book of local American ghost stories which might have something in it. I picked up the book, heading over to one of the tables where the lighting was better.

"You guys go get some lunch, I'll see what I can find here and you can pick me up later."

* * *

"So this is where Constance took the swan dive." It was dark by the time we made it to the bridge in the article. It was the same one the boys had questioned the police on earlier that day while I'd been hiding in the car.

"So, you think Dad would have been here?" Sam questioned. I'd almost forgotten we weren't just working a case and I stared down into the rapid water beneath the bridge, chastising myself.

"Well, he's chasing the same story, and we're chasing him." Dean pushed off the barrier and walked a little way further along the bridge.

"Okay, so now what?" Sammy questioned, following.

"Now we keep digging 'till we find him. Might take a while."

"Dean, I told you, I gotta get back by-" I glanced up, frowning at Sam's apparent disregard for Dad's wellbeing.

"Monday," Dean finished for him, "right, the interview, yeah, I forgot." So had I in truth, I know it's important to Sammy, but this is Dad, who might very well be in serious danger. Given the nature of the job it was pretty much a given that he'd be in some sort of danger. "You're really serious about this, aren't you?" I glanced at Dean in surprise, did he really think that Sam had worked his arse off all through school and two years of college, separated from his family, just on some whim? And that now, when his goal was close enough to touch, he'd just walk away? "You think you're just gonna become some lawyer? Marry your girl?"

"Maybe. Why not?"

"Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean does she know about the things you've done?"

"No, and she's not ever going to know" My head shot around to Sam. Seriously? He thought he could hide a huge part of his life from her?

"Well, that's healthy" Dean put my thoughts into words, "You can pretend all you want Sammy, but sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are."

"And who's that?"

"One of us." A Winchester.

"No, I'm not like you; this is not going to be my life."

"You have a responsibility-"

"To Dad? and his crusade? If it weren't for pictures, I wouldn't even know what Mom looked like," it was the same for me, I'd never met the woman, but I'd come to love and respect her memory, "and what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone, she isn't coming back"

Dean grabbed Sam by the front of his jacket and shoved him against a support strut of the bridge.

"Dean!" I called out, definitely time to intervene, before Frustrated Sam and Hurt Dean came to blows.

"Don't talk about her like that," Dean's voice was level and calm. He released his brother and stepped away, both boys taking a second to compose themselves.

"Guys," Dean was looking at something along the bridge; Sam stepped up to his side as I pushed away from the barrier to join them. Constance was there, bathed in moonlight, her white dress and dark hair billowing around her, she turned to look at us, her face blank, before she stepped of the railing and disappeared without a sound. We rushed to the edge, but there was nothing to see, except the headlights of the Impala as the engine choked to life behind us. I glanced over my shoulder at her; Baby didn't usually start with a choke, more like a cough and a roar.

"Who's driving your car?" Good question, Sammy. I glanced towards my brothers as Dean held up the car keys from his pocket. Then the car started towards us, my brothers turned and ran, I knew I'd never keep up, being half prangeni makes my movements slower than an average humans; I'm no sloth, but I can't run to save my life. I jumped up onto the barrier at the edge of the bridge and started climbing the struts, up and out of reach of the car and it sped beneath me, chasing down my two brothers, who, at the last minute, followed my lead and got off the road. Sam caught himself on the pipes suspended below the bridge and held on, but there was a splash below as Dean's leap took him down to the black, rushing waters beneath us.

"Dean!"

"Dean. Dean!"

Sammy and I were both calling, I spotted our sorry brother first; pulling himself up the bank at the water's edge while Sam was struggling to right himself and get a good footing on his pipe.

"What?"

I pursed my lips so as not to laugh, poor thing was soaked.

"Hey, are you alright?" Sammy didn't have my advantage of being able to sense that our brother was uninjured.

Dean rolled over on the bank below us and gave us an OK symbol, "I'm super."

Sam's laughter sparked my own and Dean glared at us as we clambered back onto the bridge with caution and made our way down the bank to greet him.

He was coated in river mud, I don't know how he managed it; the bank was stoney just here. I shook my head at him, pulling up handfuls of grass and marching my mucky brother back down to the water, using the grass to scrub the worst of the mud away from his face, hair and jacket, just like when we were kids and he and Sam had been out playing in the mud. Boys never seem to grow up. He bitched and moaned about the attention now too.

After checking that Baby had survived being hijacked by a ghost, and Sam's comment that Dean smelt like a toilet, (which wasn't quite true, he smelt like rotting mud, which isn't any better really) we headed back to town to get a motel room. I waited in the car, this being another circumstance where looking like a 15 year-old was not an advantage. The guys came back telling me that we'd found Dad's room and I handed Sam my lock picking set.

"What? Don't tell me you've forgotten how!" I teased him when he looked at me in surprise. I was better at picking locks than either of my brothers, I'd been practicing longer, but if practice made perfect then surely Sam needed the practice more than I did. Motel locks aren't very challenging to pick, as locks go, but it took Sam longer than it should have to open the door to room 10, he definitely needed more practice.

When we, finally, got inside the room it was clear that Dad had been here for a few days, maybe a week, but had left, fairly suddenly, a while ago, judging by the stink coming off the half eaten burger.

The walls were covered in his research, the files on the missing men, and a load of lore. More concerning; there was a salt line on the floor and cats eye shells, both used for protection, the salt for its purity, the cats eyes were said to keep away the evil eye. It was Sam who found the answer, the same article we'd found, printed out and taped beneath a sign saying "Woman in White"

I quickly ran over the lore I knew about Weeping Women, none of which I'd learned from that useless and rather boring book in the library. They were the ghosts of women who, discovering that their husbands had been unfaithful or deceitful, in a temporary insanity slew their own children before the guilt of doing so caused them to commit suicide. Once dead they wept and searched for their children and lured unfaithful men to their deaths. Which might explain the Cats Eye Shells; guarding against a jealous ghost.

In the original Mexican stories it was said that La Llorona would take any children she found, thinking them to be her own and the children would die. How much was based on truth and how much was a tale to keep children from leaving their beds at night is often not clear from the lore, though some sources are more reliable than others. In this case I thought it unlikely that Constance wouldn't know where her children were, the EVP on the message from Dad had said "I can never go home" and her children had been drowned in the bath tub. I know where'd go looking for them.

They can be destroyed the same ways as any other ghosts; salt and burn the remains, or sometimes if the spirit was trying to do something, achieve something, and you can complete this "quest" you can lay the spirit to rest. Burning is generally easier.

We agreed that the next step would be to talk to the husband, Joseph Welch, who was likely to still be alive and that first, Dean needed a shower.

Once the creature from the black lagoon had turned back into my brother, he decided it was time for some food. I heartily agreed, but Sammy declined and Dean and I headed out the door.

There were some cops on the other side of the parking lot, Dean and I shared a look and I walked away, just as the motel clerk turned and pointed at my brother. He took out his phone, "Dude, five-O, take off." I glanced back and imitating the curiosity of a teenager, slowed to watch the cops approach Dean, "Ehh, they kinda spotted me, go find Dad"

"Problem, Officers?"

They were facing off against him now, arms crossed over their chests, "Where's your partner?"

"My what? What partner?" Sometimes Dean was an excellent liar, sometimes not. The second cop headed to check out the room we'd just left, I hoped Sam wasn't too tall to fit through a window at the back.

"So, fake US Marshal. Fake credit cards. You got anything that's real?"

"My boobs." Dean, you idjit.

He was grinning at the cop, for a second or so before the cop decided to arrest him, pushing him against the bonnet of the police car and reading him his rights. I snorted and walked away, just a disinterested teen again.

I trudged my way over to the police station then I walked passed it, headed to the other side of town. The station was a small red brick building, in a small town, it would have a small force, Dean would be able to get himself out, given a suitable diversion. I walked until I was far enough away to be considered well out of earshot, and then, noting the street name, I stepped into a telephone box.

9-1-1

"This is 911 what is your emergency?"

"Yes, hello? I –uh –I heard some, I'm pretty sure I heard gunfire!" I keep my voice low and rushed, slightly panicked.

"Miss, can you tell me your location?"

"I -I'm on Whiteford road, Jericho, California."

"Okay, Miss, we'll have someone out to you as soon as possible, can you stay on the line please?"

"N-no, I can't it's my baby brother, I-I have to get back to him"

"Miss, can you give me your na-"

After hanging up I hurried away from the box, going a couple of streets over before I hot-wired a car, just like Dad taught me, and headed back to the station to pick up Dean. I parked in a back alley about a block away and headed over to meet him.

Dean was in a telephone box as I approached, "Fake 911 phone call, Sammy, I don't know, that's pretty illegal."

"What makes you think it was him?" I crossed my arms, leaning against the side of the box and grinning at my brother.

He jumped slightly, looking at me in surprise before shaking his head with a chuckle. "Listen Sammy, we gotta talk."

"Tell me about it, so the husband _was_ unfaithful, we are dealing with a woman in white and she's buried behind her old house, so that should've been Dad's next stop" Sammy's voice was tinny, but discernible from the phone Dean held to his ear.

"Would you shut up for a second?" Dean attempted to cut in.

"I just can't figure out why he hasn't destroyed the corpse yet."

Dean rolled his eyes, "Well that's what I'm trying to tell you; he's gone. Dad left Jericho."

"What? How to you know?"

"I got his journal" Dean held the leather-bound book out to me and I frowned, accepting it and tucking it away in the satchel I carried everywhere with me. Sucks, not having pockets.

"He doesn't go anywhere without that thing."

"Yeah, well, he did this time."

"What's it say?"

"Ah, same old ex-marine crap, when he wants to let us know where he's going." I reached for Dean's wrist, the cuffs always left his wrists a little sore, not that he'd complain, but I had no reason not to fix it for him.

"Co-ordinates. Where to?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"I don't understand. I mean, what could be so important that Dad would just skip out in the middle of a job? Dean, what the hell is going on?"

There was a muffled thud on the other end of the phone, "Sam? Sam!"

Dean and I looked at each other and wordlessly headed for the car I'd stolen earlier. Dean was a better driver than I was, faster reflexes, and he headed for the driver's seat while I just headed for whichever door was nearest, Dean already had the car running by the time I had wrenched it open and thrown myself into the back seat. We took off towards Breckenridge road. I held tight to the door handle as Dean threw the car around the bends, this car handled nothing like the Impala and Dean wasn't adjusting too well to racing anything but his Baby.

"Stay in the car!" We screeched to a halt, tyres skidding over woodchip and mud, and Dean raced from the car, leaving the engine running. I followed, staggering slightly as Sam's pain hit me, just before we heard his scream. Dean pulled his gun from the back of his jeans and fired several shots through the front side window of the Impala, shattering the glass and temporarily discouraging the ghost that was digging her fingers into Sammy's chest, right over his heart.

Once she was gone, Sam sat up, starting the engine and putting her in gear, "I'm taking you home."

With Dean's shout of "Sam!" echoing after him, he floored it, taking the Impala through the garden fence and then the wall of the house until he came to a stop in the front room, with Dean chasing after him.

Dean was helping Sam from the car as I caught up to them. The living room was in chaos and Constance was there. She cast aside the framed picture she'd been holding as she turned her attention back to us, stepping to one side she psychically pulled a dresser across the room, pinning us against the car. The lights started to flicker on all around the room and the woman frowned at us, before the sound of trickling water drew her attention to the stairs. Still pinned by the dresser, we watched as two small children whispered, "You've come home to us, Mommy."

Flashing to the bottom of the stairs, they hugged her and she let out a scream, their forms twisting and warping, red skeletons and blue clouds flashing before my eyes as all three sank beneath the floor, leaving a puddle on the carpet.

The dresser was now pushed away easily, and the lights went out, and stayed out. I slipped my hand into Sam's as we crossed the room to inspect the puddle.

"So, this is where she drowned her kids." Dean spoke slightly shakily.

"That's why she could never go home," Sam had a smug little grin on his face, "She was too scared to face them."

"You found her weak spot. Nice work Sammy." Dean patted Sam in the middle of his chest and Sam let out a sound that sort of resembled a laugh as I shot our brother a dark look and redoubled my efforts at drawing out Sam's pain.

"Wish I could say the same for you, what were you thinking, shooting Casper in the face, you freak?" Glad to see you're feeling better, Sammy.

"Hey, saved your ass. I'll tell you another thing, if you screwed up my car; I'll kill you."

Sammy and I just laughed and I dragged him off to fetch the stolen car as Dean started pulling the rubble off his Baby, careful not to scratch the paintwork.

* * *

It was on the road back to Stanford that I pulled out Dad's journal, handing it to Sam when he asked for it. I leant over the back of the seat, watching as he worked out the co-ordinates.

"Okay, here's where Dad went, it's called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado."

"Sounds charming. How far?"

"About 600 miles."

"Ah, we shag-ass we could it by morning."

Sam looked up, guilt written on his face and stabbing into his heart, "Dean, I'm…"

Dean focused on Sam, glancing back at the road as he drove, "You're not going?"

"Dean, this interview's in, like, 10 hours, I gotta be there."

Dean turned back to the road, "Yeah, whatever, I'll take you home."

It was the middle of the night when we got there, I passed Sam his bag and he got out shutting the door before turning to speak through the open window. "Call me if you find him. Maybe I can meet up with you later, huh?"

I grinned at my baby brother, now that he'd remembered what family meant to him, he wasn't eager to leave us again.

Dean nodded, "Yeah, alright." Sam patted the door, before turning and walking away.

"Sam! You know we made a hell of a team back there."

"Yeah," he nodded with a small smile.

Dean pulled away and I started clambering over the back of the seat to get into the front seat when the scent hit me like a wrecking ball and I gasped, "Dean! Pain! Some- someone's been stabbed, and, and is that flames? Stabbed and set on fire?" We looked at each other, both frozen in horror, before: "Sam!"

We were racing back towards Sam's apartment, Dean was way ahead of me and broke down the door, rushing in as heat, smoke and a sinister glow escaped through the open door behind him. I stopped at the door, the heat was intense, and the pain was echoing in my ears, my brothers' horror and desperation adding to the heady and overwhelming mix. Dean grabbed at my jacket as he passed me, dragging away from the doorway and as Jess' pain flickered and died with a horrific deathcry, I grabbed on to Sam, helping Dean pull him out of the building.

The deathcry hit me almost as a physical force and I collapsed to the lawn, gasping for breath and trying not to throw up. A deathcry is the burst of pain caused by a soul being ripped from a body in death. They are caused by violent deaths and they are extremely unpleasant for a prangeni, leaving me feeling physically sick, weak and wobbly in the knees and the effects were typically slow to wear off, sometimes lasting for days.

"Jess..." I whispered, as sirens began to wail in the distance and Sam's pain flared behind me where I sat on the lawn, watching flames lick from the windows of what had been Sam and Jess' bedroom.

* * *

Sam was devastated, but quickly reformed his grief into anger. Sam and I may not remember it but we know the story of how Mum died.

The same thing that had killed her all those years ago had been here tonight. The same thing had now killed Jess.

No way was it going to get away this time.


	3. Wendigo

I watched the woods go by from my seat in the back of the Impala and tried to ignore the pangs of hunger. Dean was driving, and Sam was tossing and turning in the seat beside him, caught in some nightmare, the waves of grief and pain pouring off him, not helping my attempts to ignore my hunger.

Dean glanced over as Sam moaned in his sleep, "Why don't you just help him?"

"I could take the pain away, De," I murmured quietly, "but it wouldn't help him. He needs to work through this. He needs to _feel_ it, in order to heal from it. Taking the pain away would only prolong his grieving."

Dean grunted; emotions had never really been his thing. He trusted me though, and he knew I wanted what was best for Sammy.

With a sudden start our brother was awake, glancing around the car to orientate himself and rubbing at his eyes. It had no doubt been a few years since he'd last woken up in this car.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, fine." Sammy was lying to us, and we all knew it.

"'nother nightmare?" Sam ignored him, "Wanna drive for a while?"

I stared at Dean while Sam gave a short laugh, "Dean, your whole life you never once asked me that."

"Just thought you might want to, never mind."

"Look, man, you're worried about me, I get it, and thank you, but I'm perfectly okay." Dean made a noise of sarcastic agreement and I just snorted. Sam's head movement as he turned to look at the road was one of exasperation.

"Alright," Sam grabbed the map off the dash, "where are we?"

"We are just outside of Grand Junction."

"You know what; maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon."

"Sam, we dug around there for a week, okay? We came up with nothing. If you wanna find the thing that killed Jessica-"

There was a sharp increase in pain as her name was spoken, partly it was Sam's pain, partly I missed the girl I'd met only briefly, she'd been a part of my life, albeit only a small part, for as long as she had been in Sam's and I felt her loss keenly.

"-We've got to find Dad first" Sam studied the map and struggled to maintain control over his pain.

"Dad disappearing, and this thing showing up again after twenty years? It's no coincidence. Dad'll have answers, he'll know what to do."

"It's weird, man," Dean looked over to Sam and the map he held, "these co-ordinates he left us, this Blackwater Ridge,"

"What about it?"

"There's nothing there, it's just… woods." Sam looked up at us, dropping the map to his lap, "Why's he sending us to the middle of nowhere?"

"He's hunting something." I pointed out. It was pretty obvious really. After all, he never did anything else.

When we got to Lost Creek we headed to the Ranger Station and I followed the boys inside. It was a fairly small log cabin, there was a three dimensional model of the national park in the middle of the room, a desk to one side, an office at the back and a couple of framed photos up on the walls. I picked up a tourist information pamphlet and started to browse while Sam looked at the model and Dean was distracted by one of the photos.

"So, Blackwater Ridge is pretty remote," Sammy starting briefing us and I drifted over to study the model with him, "It's cut off by these canyons here, rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines, all over the place-"

"Dude, check out the size of this friggin' bear!"

Sam stepped up to Dean's side before continuing, "And, a dozen or more grizzlies in the area. It's no nature hike, that's for sure."

"You kids aren't planning to go out by Blackwater Ridge, by any chance?" An old ranger had stepped out of the office behind us, the smell of his coffee reminding me again that I hadn't eaten yet that day.

"Oh, no sir," Sam started with a friendly smile on his face, "We're environment study majors from UC Boulder, just working on a paper." It was almost nostalgic; to watch Sammy slip back into lying so easily.

"Recycle, man," Dean added his two cents with a small fist pump, idjit.

"Bull!" I looked up sharply, glancing at my brothers as we all exchanged a look before turning back to look at the ranger, "You're friends with that Halley girl, right?"

"Yes!" Dean took the lead now; he'd always been the leader of our little band, even back when I'd appeared to be the oldest. "Yes, we are, Ranger… Wilkinson"

The man moved behind his desk and the three of us shifted to stand before it, Sammy and I each behind one of Dean's shoulders, "Well, I will tell you exactly what I told her; her brother filled out a back country permit saying he wouldn't be back from Blackwater until the 24th. So, not exactly a missing person's now, is it? Tell that girl to quit worrying, I'm sure her brother's just fine"

"We will." He turned to go back to his office when Dean called after him, "Well, that Halley girl's quite a pistol, huh?"

" _That_ is putting it mildly."

"Actually, you know would help, is if I could show her a copy of that back country permit, you know, so she could _see_ her brother's return date" Ranger Wilkinson considered for a moment and Dean gave him an 'I'm innocent' face which was utter horse shit, but effective non the less. The ranger gave us the copy and we left, Dean chuckling as headed back out to the car.

"You cruising for a hook-up or something?" Sammy sounded pissed. I trudged along behind my brothers, letting their fight wash over me as I considered. Dad had sent us to the middle of nowhere, and now a kid was missing, in the exact same middle of nowhere. It couldn't be chance; this was a definitely a hunt. The only question was whether Dad was still here. Or, maybe...

Dad wasn't here, was he? He knew we'd be looking for him, and this was how he'd chosen to get us off his tail; send us off on a false lead that would keep us busy long enough to guarantee that his trail had gone cold.

The old man had always been a crafty one.

"Since when are you all shoot first, ask questions later anyway?" I glanced up as I reached the car.

"Since now." Sam's voice was quiet, he got into the car as Dean and I shared a look.

* * *

After a long overdue meal we headed to the contact address on the back country permit Dean had scored from the ranger, I stayed in the car, since the boys would be pretending to be park rangers, and again, I couldn't join in.

After that we headed to a bar, not Sam's or my first choice of location, but Dean was driving, and he was only a fan of democracy when everyone agreed with him. There was a library down the street, so Sam and I got to researching while Dean went and… did whatever it is Dean does in a bar.

What we found confirmed my thoughts that we had a case on our hands. As we joined Dean in the bar, Sam filled him in, "So, Blackwater Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic, local campers mostly, but _still_ this past April two hikers went missing out there, they were never found."

"Any before that?"

"Yeah," Sam handed Dean the print outs of the old newspaper articles, "In 1982 eight different people all vanished in the same area, authorities said it was a grizzly attack. And again in 1959 and again in 1936," Sammy reached into his bag for his laptop and balanced it precariously on the small table we were sat around. "Every 23 years, just like clockwork. Okay, watch this; here's the clincher. I downloaded that guy Tommy's video to the laptop and check this out."

He clicked through the three frames on the video where _something_ could clearly be seen moving at very high speed outside the tent, unfortunately due to the nature of how digital footage was recorded, the high speed of whatever it was rendered it impossible to identify.

"Do it again." The shape was just a blur, Dean wouldn't get anything more from it than we had, it was vaguely humanoid, with arms and legs, probably around the same size as a human, depending on the relative positions of the light source, the creature and the wall of the tent where its shadow could be seen, and it was very, very fast.

Or maybe very small and close to the light source. But when are we ever that lucky?

Sam showed the frames again, "That's three frames, it's a fraction of a second, whatever that thing is, it can move."

Dean smacked Sam in the arm, "Told you something weird was going on!"

"Yeah," Sam shut the laptop, returning it to his bag, "I got one more thing; in '59 one camper survived the supposed grizzly attack, just a kid, barely crawled out of the woods alive."

Dean regarded the newspaper article Sam had handed him, "Is there a name?"

* * *

I waited in the car for the guys to come back from questioning Mr Shaw, they were still posing as rangers, and I _still_ couldn't tag along. Eventually they reappeared and Dean headed straight for the armory in the boot.

"So?" I leant against the side of the car, arms crossed against the evening chill, watching as Dean shoved shotguns into a duffel bag. "Add a third."

He looked up and pointed a finger at me, "You're not coming."

"That girl Halley has lost her brother out in those woods, that ain't a club I'm interested in joining. I'm coming with you."

"No!" Sam added his opinion, before turning to Dean, "We cannot let that Halley girl go out there."

"Well, what are we gonna tell her? She can't go into the woods because of a big scary monster?"

"Yeah!"

"You won't be able to stop her, just like you won't be able to stop me."

They both glared at me, I gave them a 'what you gonna do?' face. They knew tying me up wouldn't work, I was something of an escape artist. That's if they could even keep a hold on me long enough to tie me up in the first place; wriggling will get you out of everything from tickle fights to being tied to a chair for your own protection.

"So, finding Dad isn't enough? Now we have to babysit too?" Sam asked, I gave him an affronted look, Dean just watched him. "What?" His voice was low and irritated.

"Nothing" Dean threw the duffel at his chest and we headed towards the motel room.

The next morning dawned sunny and bright as I bounced around the room, putting coffee on for the boys and hustling them out of bed. We hit up a diner for breakfast and I made them stop at a convenience store for snacks on the way out to the Ranger's Station. Sammy and I went for the nice, sensible dried fruit and biscuits, a couple of water bottles. Dean got M&Ms.

Halley, her brother Ben, and the guide they'd hired where already at the bottom of the trail by the time we arrived. I was secretly glad we'd have a guide, since I hadn't really had time to study the map in as much detail as I would have liked, and the last thing we needed to add to our list of problems was getting lost out there.

"You guys got room for three more?" Dean called cheerily as we exited the car.

"Wait, you want to come with us?" Halley looked hesitant, so I smiled brightly at her, trying to seem friendly and helpful.

"Who are these guys?" The guide was scowling at us and caring a firearm.

"Apparently this is all the park services could muster up for the search and rescue." She gave Dean an unimpressed look before glancing at me, "I've no clue who she is."

"You're rangers?"

"That's right!" That's it Dean, confidence is the way to sell any lie.

"And you're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?" Maybe confidence wouldn't be enough to sell this particular lie, Halley still looked unimpressed.

"Well, Sweetheart, I don't do shorts."

"It's 'cause he's got hideous legs!" I whispered to the girl as I passed her.

"And who are you?" Her voice had risen in pitch; she could see her control over the situation slipping.

"His sister." I gestured over my shoulder to where my brothers were starting to lead the way along the trail. "I'm the better map reader and he knows it, so I usually tag along."

"What? You think this is funny?" I'm starting to reconsider the value of this guide, "It's dangerous back country out there, her brother might be hurt."

Dean looked at Sam, I couldn't see his face, but I'm willing to bet it was 'ya think?' "Believe me," he turned back to the guide, "I know how dangerous it can be. We just want to help them find their brother, that's all."

We'd trekked a few miles out when Dean decided to make a little small talk with Roy, the guide. They were talking about hunting, Dean was mocking the man to his face, without his words ever letting it show, but I grinned as Roy became irritable, clearly aware he was being mocked, but unsure of how exactly. Suddenly he flipped the tables on Dean, stopping him from stepping in a bear trap, and getting in a gentle dig at Dean for his obvious lack of knowledge of the landscape we were traveling through.

Halley scowled at me before pushing ahead to talk to Dean. Well, that wasn't very friendly; I'd been perfectly nice to her.

"You didn't pack any provisions, you guys are carrying a duffel bag, and you brought your sister along. You're not rangers, who the hell are you?" She and Dean stopped, and I caught Dean's eye before I passed them, checking he was okay with this, he nodded and I moved along.

"We're siblings, and we're looking for our father, he might be here, we don't know. I just figured that you and me were… in the same boat."

"Why didn't you just tell me that from the start?"

"I'm telling you now. Besides, it's probably the most honest I've ever been with a woman, ever. So, we okay?" Dean started walking again, they had fallen behind the group, but they were still comfortably within the range of my hearing, which seems to be more advanced that a humans. "And what do you mean I didn't pack provisions?" I glanced back to see him pulling the bag of M&Ms out of his pocket, already half eaten. Oh, Dean.

It was hours, long after we'd stopped for lunch (and the boys had suddenly been grateful for my early morning productivity when I produced sandwiches for them from my satchel) when Roy came to a halt.

"This is it, Blackwater Ridge."

"What co-ordinates are we at?" You know, I'm starting to worry about Sammy; he's been… not himself since losing Jess. Maybe a little light pain relief _was_ needed.

"35, -111" Came the reply after Roy checked his GPS.

"You hear that?" Dean questioned.

"Yeah," replied Sam as I cocked my head, straining my ears, "not even crickets."

"There are echoes here though," I murmured to my brothers, "Faint, a few days old, I think, but undisturbed." Pain is energy, I sense it using an additional sense, not any of the traditional five, and so describing it is difficult. I usually settled for saying that I could smell or hear it, despite the inaccuracy.

"Let me go take a look around." The guide _had_ been helpful, but couldn't we have had someone other than this Roy? He was starting to grate on my nerves.

"You shouldn't go off by yourself."

"How sweet," Yep, I hate the guy, "I won't be long."

"Alright, everyone stays together," Dean turned to look at the rest of us. "Let's go."

We hadn't followed the idiot far when he shouted from up ahead and we all hurried along the path to join him. What we found was not good.

Tommy's campsite was destroyed, tents ripped, supplies damaged and strewn about, there was some blood on one of the tattered tents.

"Looks like a grizzly" Roy informed us. Incorrectly, but he was just a civilian; what would he know?

The pain echoes were stronger here, but disturbed, as if something had been moving about the campsite after the pain and fear had ended or moved elsewhere. I glanced around the site, could it have been staged? Could the monster have returned to trash the camp and make it look like a grizzly attack? Halley and Ben's pain was starting to rise, obliterating the delicate scent trail, so I turned my attention to the physical traces, looking for tracks, bloodstains, anything that would confirm my theory.

"Tommy!" I gave Halley a sharp look as she called out for her brother and Sam hurried to hush her.

Here, at the back of one of the tents, there were marks where a body had been dragged from the tent and away from the camp; Dean and I followed it to its end. Dean called Sam over to see what we'd found and I hissed as he arrived, the puzzle resolving itself in my mind and I snapped my gaze up to the trees above our heads. "Fucker can climb."

"I'll tell you what," said Dean, rising from his examination of the ground, "It's no skin walker or blackdog."

We headed back to the campsite, wanting to keep everyone together and Dean moved to offer words of comfort to Halley while I tried to persuade Sam to lift me up on his shoulders so I could get a closer view of the surrounding tree branches. My hearing may be better than a humans, but my eyesight seems to be equivalent, if not slightly reduced.

Suddenly, away in the woods to the right, there was a human sounding scream. Everyone froze, and then ran all at once as the voice cried out again for help. We raced through the woods following the screams and then Sam, who was in the lead, stopped suddenly, listening.

I was at the back, the slowest in the group, and I stopped, straining my ears for the slightest sound. Was that a breeze passing through the tree tops above me with a slight scrape and a trace of… hunger?

"It seemed like it was coming from around here, didn't it?" It can't have been a breeze, the wind was going the other way, and it was headed back the way we'd come, impossibly fast.

"Everybody back to camp." Called Sam and we set of at a brisk jog back the way we'd come, a sinking sensation in my stomach, despite the fear starting to rise in our group.

Fear, worry, hunger and distress aren't truly pain of course, and therefore not as… nutritious, but they are types of discomfort, and I could definitely smell the fear pouring off certain members of the group. And I had no doubt that the creature I now suspected was hunting us could smell the fear too.

The thing, whatever it was, was fast, it could climb, dragging its victims into the trees with it, so it was strong too. It was hungry, could imitate human voices and it was smart. The evidence was stacking up and I didn't like where it was pointing.

When I arrived back at the campsite, the packs were gone and Sam was speaking, "It's smart, it wanted to cut us off so we can't call for help."

"You mean someone, some nutjob out there, just stole all our gear?" Roy really wasn't the brightest bulb, was he?

"I need to speak with you, in private." Sam pulled Dean behind a few trees and I followed, eyeing the trees above us.

"Let me see Dad's journal." Dean handed it over and Sammy started leafing through it.

"It's a Wendigo. Isn't it?" I joined the boys, still keeping my gaze upwards.

"No!" Dean scoffed, "Wendigos are in the Minnesota woods or Northern Michigan, I've never even heard of one this far west!"

Sam found the right page in Dad's journal and handed it to Dean, "Think about it Dean, the claws, the way it can mimic a human voice. And Ali and I came to the same conclusion without conferral."

Dean gives us a 'do you have to use big words?' face, "Great…well, then this is useless." Holding up his gun.

Sam closed the journal and slapped it against Dean's chest as he walks past, "We've got to get these people to safety."

"Too late for that, Sam," I murmur, still searching the trees above us, "It's hunting us now."

Both boys looked at me, horrified realisation on their faces.

"Awesome."

* * *

The fire was burning brightly as night fell, according to lore the wendigo was sufficiently afraid of fire that sitting by an open fire could offer some protection from one. Come to think about it, that's probably how Mr Shaw had escaped, when Dean told me everything the old man had said he'd mentioned that he'd been sleeping by the fire when the Wendigo crept into the cabin and abducted his parents.

Dean moved around the perimeter of the little campsite, drawing Anasazi symbols in the dirt, while I sat by the fire with Halley and Ben. Halley looked up at Dean as he passed us, "One more time, that's..."

"Anasazi symbols" Dean replied in his reassuring voice, the one that always made me feel safe, like the bad man couldn't hurt me anymore, the one that sounded a bit like Dad. "It's for protection, the Wendigo can't cross over them."

That cocky and ignorant guide laughed from where he stood, rifle resting casually against his shoulder of the other side of the campsite. He reeked of fear.

"No one likes a sceptic, Roy." With that small put down Dean moved across to join Sammy where he sat a little outside the ring of firelight, scratching at the ground with a small stick.

Dean sat down beside him and spoke, "You want to tell me what's going on inside that freaky head of yours?"

"Dean-"

"No, you're not fine" I couldn't disagree with Dean's words, but whether it would be wise to interfere? I studied my brothers closely from where I sat by the fire. "You're like a powder keg man, it's not like you. I'm supposed to be the belligerent one, remember?"

Sammy spoke; his voice quiet and disappointed, "Dad's not here. I mean that much we know for sure, right? He would have left us a message, a sign, right?"

"Yeah, you're probably right." Dean answered in the same tone, "Tell you the truth, I don't think Dad's ever been in Lost Creek."

"Then let's get these people back to town and let's hit the road. Go find Dad! I mean, why are we still even here?" He threw his stick at the ground.

Dean moved to sit in front of Sam, taking out Dad's journal and I moved to take Dean's unoccupied seat next to Sam. I wrapped an arm around him and leant my head against his shoulder, resisting the urge to feed.

Dean placed his hand atop the journal and stared straight at Sammy, "This is why, this book." Dean tapped at it with a fingertip. "This is Dad's single most valuable possession, everything he knows about every evil thing is in here, and he's passed it on to us. I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. You know, saving people, hunting things; the family business!"

Sam seemed unimpressed by Dean's motivational speech, though I thought it had been a fairly good one, as such things go. "That makes no sense. Why… Why doesn't he just call us, why doesn't he tell us what he wants, tell us where he is."

"I dunno, but the way I see it, Dad's given us a job to do and I intend to do it."

"Dean… No. I gotta find Dad, I gotta find Jessica's killer. It's the only thing I can think about."

"Okay, alright, Sam, we'll find them, I promise. Listen to me, you've gotta prepare yourself, I mean, this search could take a while, and all that anger, you can't keep it burning over the long haul, it's going to kill you. You gotta have patience, man." I take it back; Dean can do feelings, just so long as they're not his.

Sammy shook his head with a rueful little chuckle, "How do you do it? How does Dad do it?"

Dean looked around before focusing back on Sam, "Well, for one, them." Sam and I both glanced over to the fireplace, where Halley and Ben where huddling close to the flames. "I figure our family's so screwed to hell, maybe we can help some others, makes things a little bit more bearable. And I'll tell you what else helps; killing as many evil sons of bitches as I possibly can."

We shared a small smile, and I gave my baby brother's shoulder a squeeze, about to offer my particular brand of pain management, but we were interrupted.

"Help me!" The cry sounded like a desperate man, though if I listened closely I could hear a slight difference in the timbre from a normal human. "Please!"

The three of us were on our feet and back with the others in the circle of firelight before the second cry sounded. The others were all standing too, staring out into the darkness with wide eyes and in Roy's case with his utterly useless rifle raised to his shoulder. "Help!"

"It's trying to draw us out," Dean's voice was calm and unwavering, "stay cool, stay put."

"Inside the magic circle?" Some people (Roy) were just _asking_ to be eaten by a wendigo…

"Help! Help me! Please!" The cries were cut off by a roar and a very manly scream.

"Okay, that's no grizzly." Finally got the memo, did you, Roy?

"It's okay," Halley had hold of her remaining brother's hand and was pulling him to sit down by the fire, "He'll be alright, I promise."

Dean and Roy were both pointing useless firearms into the darkness now. It was a sign of how nervous my brother was; he knew the gun wouldn't hurt a wendigo, he was doing it simply because having a gun in his hand made him feel better, more in control of the situation. Silver tipped bullets would do a little damage, not enough to kill it, or even really slow it down, but the silver bullets were back in the Impala, and regular bullets wouldn't do more than make it cross.

There was growl suddenly close by and Halley screamed, "It's here!" Sam announced before the growls and now rustling foliage starting racing around the campsite faster than we could follow with our eyes.

Roy started shooting and soon there was a squeal from the tree and the sound of something moving away, "I hit it!" and he made off into the darkness to finish his kill as he would a dear or a bear.

"Roy, No! Roy!" Dean pointed back at us, "Don't move!" and quickly followed Roy, Sam racing after him. Idjits! The fool's dead already!

Halley and I both grabbed burning branches from the fireplace, holding them in front of ourselves and standing with our backs together as cries came from the woods. "It's over here! It's in the trees!" that was the voice of the wendigo, was it still simply mimicking old victims, or did it actually understand what it was saying and it was taunting us?

The boys came back, without Roy.

The rest of the night passed in wakefulness, with the wendigo rustling the trees and calling to us, but none of us left the protection of the fire and the Anasazi symbols again.

When morning came, I was sat with Sam, curled around him, reducing his pain to something he could think around more easily. Being unable to feel emotional responses can be disconcerting, it can make things worse in the end, but Sam's knowledge of what I was doing, coupled with the fact that I was reducing, not removing, the pain would hopefully be enough to prevent further damage. I was slowing easing it back, allowing the pain to ebb and flow back to full strength so that Sammy could get to grips with it, rather than throwing him in the deep end. We were still on a hunt, we needed him to be able to think clearly without my assistance.

Dean was giving the civilians 'The Talk' and examining the marks the wendigo had left on the trees around the camp during the night.

"I don't…" Halley wasn't as accepting as her brother Ben. "I mean, these types of things, they aren't supposed to be real."

"I wish I could tell you different."

"How do we know if they're out there watching us?"

"We don't," That's really reassuring, Dean, "but we're safe for now."

"How do you know about this stuff?"

"It kinda runs in the family."

Sammy and I returned at this point, "So, we've got half a chance in the daylight, and I, for one, want to kill this evil son of a bitch."

"Well, hell, you know I'm in." Dean smirked at us.

Sam got out the journal and showed it to Halley and Ben, "Wendigo is a Cree Indian word. It means 'evil that devours'."

"They're hundreds of years old. Each was once a man, sometimes an Indian or other times a frontiersman or a miner or hunter." Dean had read Dad's journal so many times he practically had it memorised word for word.

"How's a man turn into one of these things?"

"Well, it's always the same. During some harsh winter, the guy finds themselves starving, cut off from supplies or help - becomes a cannibal to survive, eating other members of his tribe or camp."

"Cultures all over the world believe that eating human flesh gives a person certain abilities - speed, strength, immortality."

"If you eat enough of it, over years, you become this less-than-human thing. You're always hungry."

"So, if that's true, how can Tommy still be alive?"

We exchanged a look, "You're not gonna like it."

"Tell me."

"More than anything, a wendigo knows how to last long winters without food. It hibernates for years at a time. When it's awake, it keeps its victims alive. It stores them so it can feed whenever it wants. If your brother's alive it's keeping him somewhere dark, hidden, safe. And we've got to track it back there."

"And then how do we stop it?"

"Well, guns are useless, so are knives. Basically, we've got to torch the sucker." Dean held up the Molotov cocktail he'd cobbled together from the remains of the campsite, a grim smile on his lips and a gleam in his eye; Dean lived for the hunt.

After the activity of the night before there were plenty of scratch marks on the trees surrounding our little campsite, but further off there were fewer and it didn't take us long to pick up a trail. Every few yards a tree was marked, it was clear, very clear, and none of it had been there the day before.

It almost reminded me of a school trip when I was younger. We'd gone to the woods, a park, and the teachers had split us into groups. Each group followed a different coloured trail, the trails were marked by squares of paint on the trees. Squares, not claw marks and blood, but these were markers all the same, markers that were meant to be followed. The only question that remained was whether or not the trap was in the direction of the lair or not.

"Dean!" Sam called from up ahead and we jogged up to join him where he was staring up at the trees, which were marked in a circle all around us.

"You know," Sam kept his voice low enough that Halley and Ben couldn't hear, "I was thinking that those claw prints were so clear and distinct. Huh, they were almost too easy to follow."

Sudden growling and movement in the bushes around us had us all on high alert and Halley backed up towards a tree. A sudden silence fell, broken by a dripping noise, blood was falling onto the shoulder of Halley's jacket, she turned to look above her as I grabbed her sleeve and yanked her towards me, out from under the tree. I don't know if her scream was caused by our falling to the ground, or what she had seen in the tree, but there was a crash and Roy's body tumbled to the ground where she had been standing only a moment before.

Sammy rushed towards us, helping us to our feet and asking if we were okay. Dean checked the body, which was giving off no pain. "His neck's broken."

There was a growl from somewhere above us and Dean took command, "Okay, run! Run! Let's go, go, go!"

We took off, flying through the trees in a panic, Ben tripped not far ahead of me and Sam looked around at the sound, he stopped, grabbing at a tree to help control his momentum and came back helping Ben from the ground and grabbing at my arm as I got closer, dragging us both along. "Come on! I gotcha!"

From up ahead the sound of footsteps stopped, there was a growl and then Halley's loud scream. With a sound of smashing glass and a rustle in the tree tops, all was quiet up ahead.

"Halley!" Ban raced ahead, Sam hot on his heels until they stopped suddenly; Sam reaching down to pick up the neck of a smashed bottle with a meths soaked rag through it.

"Dean!" I caught the boys and stood stock still, searching.

Somewhere, there had to be… There! It was faint, high in the trees, only a trace drifting down to me where I stood on the ground below. "This way!" I gasped and surged forwards.

I hurried onwards, desperate not to lose the faint trail of my brother's distress, careful to keep a little ahead of the others, not wanting their fear and anxiety to cover up the barely discernible trace.

"If it keeps its victims alive, why would it kill Roy?" Ben asked, just as I lost the scent.

"Honestly? I think because Roy shot at it, pissed it off." Sam replied, I was staring upwards, 'sniffing' and 'listening', with no luck.

Ben bent close to the ground, picking something up, "They went this way!"

Sam and I hurried over, relief flooding me as I saw the M&M he was holding; I wouldn't need to find that trail.

"Huh." Sammy took it, looking at it before tossing it to the side, "It's better than breadcrumbs"

We followed the M&Ms to the entrance to an old mine, Dean's words from earlier resounding in my head _'it's keeping him somewhere dark, hidden, safe.'_ A deserted mine could certainly be considered all those things by a wendigo. We exchanged a glance, then Sammy stepped through the hole left by the missing boards over the entrance and disappeared into the darkness beyond.

The air inside the mine was still and the cold and damp seemed to seep from the rocks around us into the air, so that you couldn't even breath without knowing you were underground. Our footsteps echoed through the darkness, disturbed only by the dripping of water somewhere further ahead. The only light came from the entrance behind us and the torches Sam and I had retrieved from our pockets.

There was a growl and we both switched off the lights, ducking to the sides of the tunnel, pressing back against the cold stone. The wendigo stepped into view, silhouetted against the sunlight from the entrance behind it. Ben made a small whimpering noise and Sam covered his mouth with a hand, turning to look at him and shaking his head.

When it had moved passed we ducked down the passage it had come from, it was quite possible that it was keeping its prisoners down there. The torchlight reflected off the damp stone walls and I dropped behind slightly, directing my torch to the ground, wanting to see any slight trace of regular passage, a sign that the wendigo came this way often.

The footsteps ahead of me suddenly changed from walking on stone to wooden boards, creaking wooden boards. With barely any warning, and not enough time to react the boards gave way beneath the boys and they disappeared into the blackness below. I held back the little scream of shock I wanted to give. There was no need to draw more attention to our presence than the sound of breaking boards already had.

I edged closer to the hole. The boys weren't seriously hurt, just a bit banged up, but they weren't the only people whose pain whispered to me from below. I rummaged through my satchel for the rope I'd brought. It, a first aid kit and the snacks we'd bought from the convenience store were the only supplies I'd brought with me. I found the end of a wooden beam that still looked fairly sturdy and secured the end of the rope before shimmying my way down it. The ground wasn't too far below, and by the time I got there Sam had already cut Dean and Halley down from where the wendigo had tied them up. I grabbed Dean's face, drawing the pain from his wrists, concussion and assorted contusions. I gestured to the other being whose pain I could sense, "Cut him down too."

Halley and Ben approached the figure, reaching out to touch his face Halley whispered a name, her voice trembling with tears, "Tommy?" Then she jumped, screaming a little as he awoke with a gasp. They made quick work of cutting the boy down and I moved across to join them. The boy was in a lot more pain now that he was awake. He grinned up at his siblings and they whispered reassurances to him. I checked him for injuries and fed deeply from his pain, the head injury would keep him confused enough that he wouldn't link the decrease in pain to my presence.

"Hey, check it out!" Dean's voice was upbeat, drawing our attention to him and the flare guns he held in either hand.

I grinned at him, "Those'll work."

Halley and Ben hauled their brother to his feet and I rested a hand on Sam's shoulder as Dean handed him one of the flare guns, drawing the mild pain from his ankle and back where he'd fallen to the floor. We ignored the rope I'd used to descend; there was no way we'd be able to get Tommy up that route.

Sam and Dean led the way from the 'pantry' while I took the rear, listening closely and feeding off Tommy's pain. The effects of my feeding would last a short while, that combined with adrenaline would keep the party moving at a reasonable pace.

There was a growl up ahead and we all stopped, "Looks like someone's home for supper."

"We'll never out run it." Halley pointed out, hauling her brother's arm higher on her shoulder.

Dean glanced to Sam, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yeah, I think so." I frowned, I hated it when Dad used to make Dean be the bait, and it was always Dean, I ran too slowly, Sam was the baby, too precious, so it was always Dean who was placing himself in the line of fire.

Dean took a few steps forward before turning to address the others, "Alright, listen to me. Stay with Sam and Ali, they'll get you out of here."

"What are you going to do?"

Dean didn't answer with words, just a wink, and then he was off, shouting for the wendigo to "Bring it on, baby! I taste good!"

Of course, it was entirely possible, the wendigo being as smart as it was, that Dean wasn't actually being the bait this time; that the wendigo would ignore him and come after us instead.

Sam went a little way ahead, checking around a corner with the flare gun raised to shoulder height, "Right, come on, hurry!"

We could hear Dean still shouting, and somewhere much closer, the wendigo growling as we found a place where daylight could be seen. Sam checked around the corner towards the light, then moved towards the tunnel where the growling was getting louder, "Get out of here."

"Sam, no!"

"Go!"

"Get out of here, so we don't have to worry about you." I handed Ben my torch and gave Halley a small shove down the passage. They moved, slowly, but they did move.

Sam tucked himself against the wall and I sank to the ground finding a crevice where I could watch from the shadows.

There was quiet for a second before my sensitive ears picked up the sound of stealthy movement above Sam's head.

"Above you!" I shouted the warning and then launched myself down the tunnel after the others. There was only one shot in the flare gun, if Sam missed, I needed to run, there was nothing more I could do. My shadow ran long in front of me as the flare lit the tunnel behind me in bright white light, there was an angry roar from the wendigo and Sam was pelting down the tunnel behind me, shouting at the group ahead of us to run!

We hurried around the corner, only to find another corner and another, daylight streaming in through holes in the roof of the mine, but no way out. We could hear the wendigo following us, perhaps it was cautious because we might have more flares, or perhaps it was playing with us. We hit a dead end and Sam stood to the front of our little, unarmed and utterly helpless group. I wrapped my arms around my brother, my heart racing and eye wide as the wendigo stepped into view.

It had leathery looking grey skin, its arms and legs longer than was right for something that was once human. Its head was bald, making its ears more prominent, the tops pointed and folded slightly like a bat's. It stood tall and screeched at us, its cry cut short by a welcome shout from behind it.

"Hey!" Dean! Our hero! His face, dirtied from our misadventures, was briefly illuminated by the flare as he pulled the trigger before the fiery projectile struck the wendigo square in its bony chest, the flames burning into the hideous creature and consuming it from within. The passage lit up with the flames from the surprisingly flammable wendigo, Dean grinned at us from beyond the fire, "Not bad, huh?"

Hours later we had finally made it back to the Ranger's Station, I hadn't been kidding when I'd told Halley that I was better with maps than the boys. We might have been much later getting back if I hadn't found us a trail to follow that was relatively clear of trees overhead, keeping what little light remained to us as darkness fell. We'd reported our experiences, with much inaccuracy, to Ranger Wilkinson and he had called in the police and ambulances. Ben was busy telling the officer about the huge grizzlies that had attacked us as Tommy was loaded into the ambulance. I had hovered by his side, absorbing as much of his pain as I could, but the paramedic was now asking me to leave, and the pain killers they had given him were starting to kick in, so I returned to my brothers, leaning against the bonnet of the Impala.

"Man, I hate camping."

"Me too."

I disagreed with my brothers; there had been a few times, when we were little when we'd taken a sheet and made a funny little tent against a tree, taking all the pillows and blankets from the motel room to make a comfy little den. Dean had managed to find a lighter from somewhere and we gathered enough tinder to make a small fire, and we'd roasted marshmallows beneath the stars. After the first time, when Dad had been cross that we'd gotten the bedding dirty, and that Sammy had caught a cold, we'd been more careful. We'd used ground sheets, and I'd ensured that my baby bro was dressed as warm as could be, and then I cuddled him close all night. Those times were so simple.

"Sam, you know we're going to find Dad, right?"

"Yeah, I know, but in the meantime," Sammy turned to face us with a self-satisfied smirk, "I'm driving."

Dean seemed to consider this, while I tried to hide my amusement; Dean _had_ offered to let Sam drive. Eventually he tossed the keys in the air and Sam caught them. We loaded up, and with a few revs of the engine, and a wide grin at our older brother, Sam pulled away from the lodge.

We didn't know where Dad was, we didn't know where our next stop would be, or where our journey would take us, but the three of us, driving down the road together, I just knew we'd make it somehow.


	4. Dead in the Water

We were staying at a place called The Lynnwood Inn for the night. We'd gotten the usual room, two double beds, the boys took one each and I curled up with Sam for the night. I usually stayed with Dean, unless someone else was hurting. I'd been sleeping with Dean since Dad had first let me stay, back then Sammy was usually in the bed with us, except when Dad was out hunting, then sometimes Sam took his bed.

I stayed with Dean for a couple of reasons, firstly, that boy carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, missing his mum, missing his dad, who'd changed so much since Mary had died, and being the one left to look after Sam. He managed so well, and hid how much it hurt him, but the poor kid was exhausted every night, the least I could do was to keep the nightmares at bay, taking his pain away while we slept. Feeding like that, relieving people's pain, was so second nature to me that I literally could do it in my sleep, so long as I was only sleeping lightly.

And frankly, after what my father had put me through, I always slept lightly. Fear will do that to you.

The second reason that I slept in Dean's bed, was for my own comfort. Dean had been my very first friend. When Dad had killed my father and saved me, bringing me home and giving me a new family, I had been timid and afraid. Dean had taken me under his wing; he was my big brother, despite the fact that I was so much older than him.

And he helped keep the nightmares away. Being cold, or alone, or in the dark. Any of these things could bring the memories flooding back, bring his face looming at me out of the dark, bring his hands, harsh and unkind, grabbing at me in the dark. Cuddling up to a brother, warm and solid and safe, makes a big difference. I wake up and know right away that I'm okay. The smell of gunpowder, motor oil and leather is home and safety to me, it always will be.

When morning came Dean was the first one out of bed, as usual, unless he's hungover, or I'd not been able to sleep the night before, then on the odd occasion I'd be up first. When we were kids it was usually Dad who was up first. But today it was Dean, moving quietly around the room, Sammy slept on, and I laid awake, watching Dean, and cuddling further into Sam's shoulder. I was warm and comfortable, but daylight was coming in through the crack in the curtains and I shut my eyes just in time as Dean, evil grin in place, ripped the curtains open, "Rise and shine! It's a beautiful day!"

Sammy groaned, turning away from the light, and I buried my face in Sam's shoulder as Dean left the room, leaving the curtains open, because he's just mean like that.

Sam and I dragged ourselves from our nice warm bed, blinking bleary eyes and shut the curtains again. We took turns in the bathroom, dressing and getting ready for the day, before joining Dean in the dining room for breakfast.

He'd already ordered for us and the food arrived just after we sat down, a fry up for Dean, pancakes for me, and porridge for Sam. Sam grunted and reached for his coffee, the kid can't function without the requisite level of caffeine in his blood. I thanked Dean with a smile and dug in, the pancakes were pretty good, a little too much syrup perhaps.

Once we'd eaten Dean grabbed a bunch of newspapers from the seat next to him, handing some to me, he held the rest out to Sam, who ignored him and left the table without a word. Dean and I just looked at each other; it'd take another couple of coffees before he was a functioning human being again. Dean moved his plate to one side and we started going through the papers, looking for mysterious deaths and disappearances, conferring occasionally in low tones.

"Can I get you anything else?" The scantily dressed waitress was leaning over the table towards Dean, giving us both quite the eyeful and allowing me to read the name 'Wendy' on her nametag. I just smiled slightly, returning to the papers in front of me while Dean gave her a 'hello there' smile.

"Just the check, please." Sam told her as he re-joined us.

"Okay." She straightened up, still smiling at Dean and left with the empty plates.

Dean hung his head before looking up at Sam, "You know," he turned in his chair to face our younger brother and I pulled his newspaper, a local paper from Wisconsin, towards me. "Sam, we are allowed to have fun, once in a while." He pointed after Wendy, "That's fun."

Sam made no response and Dean pulled the paper from my hands, dropping it to the table in front of Sam. "Here, take a look at this. I think I got one. Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin, last week Sophie Carlton, 18, walks into the lake, doesn't walk out. Authorities dragged the water, nothing. Sophie Carlton is the third Lake Manitoc drowning this year; none of the other bodies were found either. They had a funeral two days ago."

"A funeral?"

"Yeah, it's weird; they buried an empty coffin, for closure, or whatever."

"Closure? What closure? People just don't disappear, Dean, other people just stop looking for them."

Dean paused, and then turned in his seat to face Sam. "Something you want to say?"

"The trail for dad, it's getting colder every day."

"Exactly. So what are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know! Something! Anything!"

"You know what? I'm sick of this attitude. You don't think we want to find Dad as much as you do?"

"Yeah, I know you do, it's ju-"

"We were the ones who were with him every single day for the past two years, while you were off to college, going to pep rallies. We will _find_ Dad, but _until_ then we're gonna kill everything bad between here and there. Okay?"

Sam sighed and then Wendy walked past, distracting Dean. Just like that the argument was over, forgotten.

"Okay, Lake Manitoc. Hey?"

"Huh?" Dean dragged his eyes away from the waitress' very short shorts.

"How far?"

We hit the road after paying the bill. Dean had flirted shamelessly with Wendy until I'd interrupted, telling the girl that we were only passing through and we were leaving now, so she was wasting her time, then I pulled Dean away, protesting all the way to the car.

Once we were under way, music blaring and windows rolled down, I leant forwards to speak to Dean.

"Hey, I've been thinking about what you guys said about Dad." Sam turned the music down a bit and turned to face me where I was practically hanging over the back of the seat. "Blackwater Ridge was a false lead to throw us off his trail, and there was nothing else that we could find back in California. If Dad doesn't want to be found, then finding him is going to be damn near impossible. Maybe you guys should take this case, drop me at Bobby's place, I can keep on the hunt for Dad."

"Thought you just said finding him would be impossible?" Dean gave me a cheeky grin.

"I said damn near." I returned the grin and bumped his shoulder.

"What are you thinking? You have any ideas on where he is?" Sammy was frowning slightly, focused on me.

I shook my head, "He doesn't want us to find him, we won't find him, but it's possible that someone else knows where he is, or has seen him since we last heard from him. Bobby knows almost every hunter there is, we want to put out a hunters APB on Dad, Bobby's our guy."

Going via Sioux Falls would add a few hours to the journey, but the boys could stop for the night at Bobby's place; he would be pleased to see us, especially if I cooked.

We stopped at a store in Sioux Falls on our way and I took Sam into the store with me, he's always been the fussy eater, while Dean took a quick nap in the car. We laughed and joked as we walked up and down the aisles, picking up vegetables, mincemeat, pasta and other fresh ingredients I doubted Bobby kept in stock. He ate like Dad and Dean did when I wasn't looking after them; pizzas, burgers and tinned soup. We picked up some more beer, plenty for three, just to make sure of a warm welcome and headed back out to the car to wake Dean and drive the last few miles.

Bobby came out to meet the car as we pulled up. There was a smile on his gruff face as I ran out of the car to give him a hug and a kiss on his whiskered cheek.

"Ali, you shoulda told me you were comin'."

"Where's the fun in that?" I turned and headed back to the car to pick up my duffel bag and the groceries. Dean and Sam walking with me the second time I approached Bobby.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in. Ain't seen you in years, boy!"

Sam ducked his head, grinning in a slightly abashed way as he came forward to offer Bobby a hug.

"Well, come on in, don't know where I'm gonna put you all." Bobby grumbled as we entered the house.

We'd stayed with Bobby fairly often when we were kids, if Dad knew he'd be busy with a hunt, or moving around a lot he'd usually leave us with the old hunter. It was always great, Bobby was like the fathers you read about in books, and see on TV, the ones who look out for their kids, make sure they have fun, but also don't shield them from the world. Dad sure as hell didn't shield us from the world, but he didn't really take into account the fact that we were children either, with him it was all work and no play. Bobby made sure we were given time to just be kids, staying with him was like a holiday and we loved him dearly, the old man was family, just as surely as I was.

His grumbling about where he was going to put us was nonsense, of course, his house was a two bedroom, his and the guest, which had only twin beds, but we'd always shared quite happily. Although, the boys had both grown since we'd last had to sleep in single beds, I might end up on the couch for tonight.

The downstairs had two main rooms, the kitchen and the living room, connected by a wide archway. The house was dingy, there were disorganised piles of books everywhere; some stacked almost as tall as me. As chaotic as the filing system seemed, Bobby could find whichever book he wanted in seconds. The desk in front of the fireplace in the living room was littered with notes, only some of which were in English, a half-empty bottle of whiskey sat next to a glass and a lamp provided light to work by.

The kitchen was a little grotty, the kitchen table was pulled off to the side, acting as a desk next to the array of telephones, each labelled with a different official body and an alias, so that Bobby could pretend to be the senior of whoever a hunter was impersonating and confirm their (false) identity to the local authorities. The kitchen counters were hidden beneath dirty dishes and the stove was covered in the little orange splashes from heating soup.

I put the groceries in the fridge and got to work washing up, Bobby blushing and mumbling that it wasn't necessary, he could do it. I told him to consider it our apology for not phoning to let him know we were coming and sent him through to the living room with some beers to catch up with the boys.

Half an hour later the kitchen was spotless and I was happily chopping vegetables and humming to myself, listening to the murmur of voices from the other room. I loved moments like this, the quiet, domestic moments. My family, or at least most of them, were all gathered in one place, I was busily proving my worth by providing food, and nothing was actively trying to kill us.

I do sometimes feel that I don't offer much, that I'm a burden on my family. I felt that way much more in the beginning, before bonds of love formed and strengthened to solidify my place here. Even so, every so often I look at the boys, who are fast and strong, with quick reflexes, who are such good hunters, and I don't seem to measure up. I'm the weakest person in a fight, a liability, more likely to get someone hurt, or worse, trying to protect me than be able to contribute to a fight. I'm more of a supporting role; I study the lore, I help when they get hurt, and I feed them.

I just wish I could do more.

An hour later and I was calling the guys through to fetch plates of lasagne and sliding a cherry pie into the oven. It'd be ready more or less as we were done eating. Sammy and I helped ourselves to salad and I dropped small portions of salad on Dean and Bobby's plates too. They grumbled a little but a raised eyebrow was sufficient to quiet them. It was really only a little salad; I don't know what their problem with it was!

After an uncomfortable and sleepless night on the sofa I was up early, making pancakes for breakfast. Syrup and bacon for Bobby and Dean, fresh fruit for Sam, and jam for me; I have something of a sweet tooth. After breakfast, the boys hit the road and Bobby and I got down to business.

"I don't know where John is. I haven't heard from him in months." Bobby had never been one to beat about the bush.

"Can you let people know we're looking?"

He nodded, scratching at his beard, "If John don't wanna be found-"

"I know, Bobby, but we have to try."

He nodded his head and handed me his hunter's journal. "There are contacts in the back. Phone's in the hall."

I smiled and gave him a quick hug, making him blush slightly as he always did when I hugged him, and took the journal with me to the hall.

Two and a half hours of racking us Bobby's phone bill later, I had left what felt like a hundred messages on hunters' phones, only a few of them having answered their phones. Of the people I'd spoken to, most hadn't heard from Dad in at least a month, a couple had never met him. They'd all agreed to call and let Bobby know if they came across him in their travels.

I sighed and rolled my shoulders, going to the kitchen to reheat the leftover lasagne for lunch.

Caleb, a semi-retired hunter who often supplied Dad with weapons and ammunition, had last spoken to Dad a month ago, he was in California hunting the Woman in White at the time, but he'd wanted a resupply of bullets and shells of all calibers, and had collected it from Caleb's home in Nebraska. Caleb didn't know where he might have gone after that.

Lincoln, Nebraska was clear across the continent from California. The message Dad had left on Dean's phone gave us a time and date when we knew that Dad was in California, but the date Caleb said that he'd been in Nebraska… meant that Dad had made a hell of a good time on the drive. It didn't tell me where he might be now though.

I rubbed my hands over my face and served up the lasagne and the last of the salad, taking it through to the living room, where Bobby was pouring through the lore books.

"Any luck?" He grunted as he accepted the plate and dug in, ignoring the salad on the side.

"Not really, I now know that he went straight from California to visit Caleb, but didn't stay. I guess we just wait now."

We ate the rest of the meal in silence, and then I took the plates and washed up, before joining Bobby in the living room.

"What are we searching for and for whom?" I peered over Bobby's shoulder at the book on his desk, which might have been in Japanese, judging by the style, not a language I'm familiar with.

"Tony's got a weird one." Bobby sat back, reaching for his beer, "Bodies are drained of blood, but no bite marks, instead there's a symbol cut into the chest, but the cuts ain't deep enough to explain the blood loss. We're thinking the symbol is some kind of ritual, but it ain't one I've ever heard of before."

"But you're looking into Gaki?" Gaki are a type of Japanese vampiric ghost, created when a greedy person dies and is forced to wander the earth with an unquenchable thirst. Most thirst for blood, though sometimes it's something less harmful, like tea or sweat.

"'bout all I know of that don't drain by biting."

"And what have you found so far?" The ancient Japanese was unintelligible to me.

"Bubkis." He finished his beer and went to fetch another from the fridge.

I started browsing a stack of books next to the fire place, "Hey, Bobby, don't you have an old grimoire around here somewhere? Written in encrypted Latin?"

Bobby fished an old leather bound book from the middle of a pile near the doorway. "What you wantin' this for?" he asked gruffly as he handed it to me, "You know better than to playing around with this kind of stuff."

"I know, Bobby!" I answered brightly taking the book and grabbing a notebook and pen from the desk before curling up on the sofa with the light from the window behind me. In truth I'd been playing around with magic for years now, and I know enough to know how to do it safely. The magic has to come from within, or be borrowed, and there's usually rather a high price for borrowing. I'm not brilliant at magic, but I can do a few simple spells, healing spells mostly.

On this occasion though, I wasn't looking to perform a spell, none of the spells in this book are the kind of stuff you want to get mixed up in. The book being encrypted was rather challenging to read, but I liked a challenge and I'd read a fair bit of the grimoire; there was something about two thirds of the way through that talked about blood sacrifice rituals.

Here we go…

 _Te srimitiam miboruc iakg eossp ilacaip; te ni oacrificis aotandn exisse mymbolus ipura ni macificius eectorp._

 _Et primitias ciborum_ _Gaki_ _posse placari; et in sacrificio notanda exisse symbolum_ _Apuri_ _in sacrificium pectore_ _._

 _And by offerings of food the Gaki can be appeased; and in the sacrifice may be marked the symbol of Apuri upon the chest of the sacrifice._

"Yahtzee!" I dropped the notebook with the translation onto Bobby's desk. "So, someone's got themselves a pet Gaki and they're feeding it. Gross."

"Great. How do ya kill it? This Japanese tripe is doing my head in."

The book hadn't had anything on destroying a Gaki, only controlling it, but I think I remember when I read about them, they're ghosts, but can't be killed by the usual methods, burning the bones and such, because it's their greed which binds them to earth, rather than their mortal remains.

There was an encyclopaedia of ghosts and spirits at the top of a pile of books in the corner; I leafed through it until I found the entry on Gaki. "You have to wait until it takes physical form, it's best to attack whilst it's feeding, it'll be too distracted to defend itself. Doesn't say anything about any special weapons, but it's a ghost, so I'd say beheading with iron is probably a good start."

I closed the book and returned it to its stack while Bobby went to phone Tony and let him know what we'd found.

The next morning I got a phone call from the boys, they'd made it to Lake Manitoc, spoken to the Carlton family and the local sheriff and settled into a motel. They were confident they were dealing with some sort of water creature and Dean had phoned to ask what I knew about such things while Sam looked into the victims on his laptop.

I'd been looking at what can cause it's victims to drown and then hide the bodies since solving Tony's query the previous afternoon. There wasn't much that left no evidence, lake monsters, spirits and ghosts of drowned people were about all that came to mind. Sam didn't like the lake monster theory; the lack of sightings was certainly unusual for the lake monsters that made it into the local lore, though it was always possible that many more existed 'under the radar'.

Then Dean got a lead, a witness to one of the drownings. A kid had been out in the lake with his dad when his father had drowned, the boys had met the child, Lucas, at the police station, and he'd seemed timid and hadn't spoken. They asked me to keep looking and went to go and talk to Lucas.

The problem with lake creatures is that most of the spirits haunt the edges of the lake, not the depths. Of those that did, not much was known, too tricky to follow them to their watery lairs to learn more about them would be my guess.

The Chinese tell of a type of ghost called a Shui Gui, a textbook case of misery loves company the shui gui is the victim of a wrongful drowning, it won't rest until it drowns some other poor soul, the new victim in turn becomes the new shui gui.

The German donaufürst is a water spirit that can cause eddies and whirlpools which it uses to drown its victims.

Draci were a type of demon associated with water which kidnapped women to care for their demon offspring, but not all of the victims were female, so a draci was probably out.

English folklore tells of Jenny Greenteeth, a variation of grindylow, who lures people into the water and drowns them, but grindylow usually inhabit marsh and bogs, not lakes.

The next morning I got another call from Sam. There'd been another death, this time Will Carlton had drowned in the sink. The connection was the water from the lake, but it did rule out any kind of water monster, this was more some sort of spirit. More than that, it seemed to be targeting Bill Carlton, killing his children. I quickly briefed Sam on what I'd learned about donaufürst, shui gui and a couple of other water spirits before they left to talk to Bill Carlton, but none of those would be as… vengeful as this seemed to be.

Perhaps it was the ghost of a drowning victim, looking to get revenge on the person who had drowned it. I fetched my laptop from my room and started looking for deaths and disappearances in the area 35 years ago, that's when the drownings had started.

There were quite a few, of course; my search terms were too broad to be able to narrow it down to any one possible ghost. I sighed, putting my laptop aside and went to go and make some sandwiched from the leftover roast ham from the night before.

That evening I got a call from Sam, saying that it had been the ghost of a little boy named Peter Sweeney who had been drowned by Billy Carlton, Bill had gone out on the lake before the boys could stop him and his boat had been attacked, throwing him into the water. He hadn't come up, but the ghost was satisfied, the job was finished and they were on their way back.

The next morning I got _another_ call saying that Bill Carlton hadn't been the only one responsible for Peter's death, and that after the ghost had attempted to take Lucas, his grandfather, the sheriff, had gone out into the water, been pulled under and drowned. The boy had been returned once the Sheriff was taken. The mother was shaken by the loss of her father, but just grateful to have her son back.

The kid was finally recovering from his PTSD and the ghost was finally laid to rest. The boys would be back late that night, and I'd better have a decent meal waiting for them, especially since I'd no luck finding the trail for Dad.

Well, all's well that ends well, sort of. At least it was over. I took Bobby to the store, we were running low on beer and no fake ID, no matter how good would persuade anyone to sell me alcohol, and then got to work making Dean's favourite Chilli Con Carne, with bacon bits and topped with plenty of cheese.


	5. Phantom Traveler

Sam hadn't been sleeping well. I'd done my best, but the nightmares were haunting him, it was getting to the point where he was avoiding sleep. So it was that I was curled up, with my head tucked under Dean's chin and his arm wrapped around my waist, when the sound of the motel room door being opened filtered through the veil of sleep. Dean's breathing pattern changed and the arm around my waist shifted up to my shoulder, his hand going under the pillow to grasp the knife he kept there.

"Morning, sunshine." Sam, awake, dressed, holding coffee and doughnuts.

"Oh, geez, Sam. What time is it?" Too damn early, if you ask me, though the smell of coffee was nice.

"Uh, it's about 5.45."

"In the morning?" Questioned Dean.

"Yep." Please don't sound so happy about that, Sam.

"Where does the day go?" Dean sat up, patting my shoulder and giving it a small shake to encourage me to resign myself to being awake. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

"Yeah, I grabbed a couple of hours."

"Liar. 'Cause I was up at three, and you were watching a George Foreman infomercial."

"Hey, what can I say? It's riveting TV."

"No, it isn't, Sam." My voice was hoarse, my mouth dry.

"When was the last time you got a good night's sleep?"

"I don't know, a little while, I guess. It's not a big deal."

"Yeah, it is." I chimed in.

"Look, I appreciate your concern—"

"Oh, I'm not concerned about you. It's your job to keep my ass alive, so I need you sharp." Dean's ability to empathise is just astounding. "Seriously, are you still having nightmares about Jess?"

Sam crossed the room, sat down on his bed, and handed a coffee to Dean. "Yeah. But it's not just her. It's everything. I just forgot, you know? This job. Man, it gets to you."

"You can't let it. You can't bring it home like that."

"So, what? All this it...never keeps you up at night?"

Dean shook his head. Lying come so naturally in this family.

"Never?" Sam pressed, "You're never afraid?"

"No, not really."

Sam reached under Dean's pillow to pull out the large hunting knife and held it up as evidence.

Dean reached to take it back, "That's not fear. That is precaution."

"All right, whatever. I'm too tired to argue."

I got up then, running my hand over Sam's shoulder, helping what little I could on my way to the bathroom to get dressed. Dean's phone rang as I shut the door behind me.

When I came back out the boys were packing their bags.

"Hey, Sam? Where's my hot chocolate?"

He didn't even have the decency to look up from the bag he was shoving clothes into. "They'd run out."

* * *

"Thanks for making the trip so quick. I ought to be doing you guys a favour, not the other way around. Ali, Dean and your dad really helped me out." Jerry addressed this last to Sam.

"Yeah, they told me. It was a poltergeist?"

" _Poltergeist_? Man, I loved that movie." Some random worker in the hanger commented as we passed.

"Hey, nobody's talking to you. Keep walking." Jerry called after the man before lowering his voice slightly, "Damn right it was a poltergeist, practically tore our house apart. Tell you something, if it wasn't for you two and your dad, I probably wouldn't be alive."

Dean turned to Sam, a proud little grin on his face. _This_ is why we do the job.

"Your dad said you were off at college. Is that right?"

"Yeah, I was. I'm—taking some time off."

"Well, he was real proud of you. I could tell. He talked about you all the time."

"He did?" Poor Sam sounded surprised; he genuinely thought that Dad had never forgiven him. Dean and I gave him, 'told you so' looks, neither of which he seemed to notice.

"Yeah, you bet he did. Oh, hey, you know I tried to get a hold of him, but I couldn't. How's he doing, anyway?"

"He's, um, wrapped up in a job right now." Dean offered as an explanation, though in truth we had no idea how, or even where he was.

"Well, we're missing the old man, but we get Sam. Even trade, huh?"

Dean laughed and I smiled sadly, he was kind of right.

"No, not by a long shot." Sam put himself down and my smile faded away.

"I got something I want you guys to hear." Jerry announced as he led us into his office. "I listened to this. And, well, it sounded like it was up your alley."

He sat his desk, inserting a CD into a drive and clicking play. "Normally I wouldn't have access to this. It's the cockpit voice recorder for United Britannia flight 2485. It was one of ours."

Thee recording was crackly, the voices barely discernible, "Mayday! Mayday! Repeat! This is United Britania 2485—immediate instruction… help! United Britania 2485, I copy your message—May be experiencing some mechanical failure..."

The crackling of the recording stopped a loud… sound replacing it. A sort of weirdly, warped roaring.

The recording ended and Jerry removed it from the drive, "Took off from here, crashed about two hundred miles south. Now, they're saying mechanical failure. Cabin depressurized somehow. Nobody knows why. Over a hundred people on board. Only seven got out alive. Pilot was one. His name is Chuck Lambert. He's a good friend of mine. Chuck is, uh...well, he's pretty broken up about it. Like it was his fault."

"You don't think it was?" Sam questioned.

"No, I don't."

Sam leaned back in his seat, "Jerry, we're gonna need passenger manifests, um, a list of survivors."

"Right and, uh, any way we can take a look at the wreckage?"

"The other stuff is no problem. But the wreckage...fellas, the NTSB has it locked down in an evidence warehouse. No way I've got that kind of clearance."

Dean nodded, frowning, before dismissing it. "No problem."

Sammy and I were sat in the Impala outside the 'Copy Jack', looking through the information we'd got from Jerry while Dean was inside making the fake IDs the boys would be using on this case.

"Sam, you need to talk about it."

He sighed, running his hand over his face, "I don't really want to talk about it, Ali."

I paused, twisting in my seat to examine my baby brother, who was looking straight forwards, looking exhausted and slightly defeated. "I didn't say _want_ , Sam, I said _need_. It's eating you up inside, and you don't have to talk to me, but you _do_ need to talk to someone!"

He looked at me, bitch face in place, "Yeah? Who? Who the hell do I talk to about how some supernatural _thing_ killed the girl I love and how all I can think about is finding it and killing it, and how I know that it _won't_ bring her back, it _won't_ make the pain go away, but I still _have_ to do it? Who do I talk to apart from you and Dean? Huh?"

The pain he'd been holding inside quivered, boiling and venting as the pressure climbed too high, spiking into acute awareness and pooling tears in his eyes.

"The same thing killed Mum, but you never felt the… need, the drive to hunt it down before, Sam. How come it's getting to you now?" I kept my voice quiet, controlled, trying not to allow the hunger to slip into my voice; it wouldn't do for Sam to think that I was goading him for my own satisfaction, that's not what this was about.

"I don't know, Ali. I don't know." His voice was small, the tears overflowing and trickling slowly down his cheeks. "Maybe it'll fade in time."

"It hasn't faded for Dad, or for Dean." He glanced at me from where he'd been gazing sightlessly out the window behind me, his eyes asking silently for comfort. "They still hurt so much because the need for revenge has prevented them from mourning. I'm not saying we _shouldn't_ hunt this thing down and roast it alive, just that you should mourn too, accept that she's gone, Sammy, she's not coming back any more than Mum is."

The tears were leaking from my eyes too at this point. It didn't matter that I'd never met the woman who'd given birth to my brothers, only ever seen pictures and heard stories, I wished for her to be returned alive to us just as much as Sam did.

"How do I mourn her, Ali? When all I can feel is rage and pain?" Those hazel eyes were so expressive, begging for comfort, for direction.

"Start by letting it out, by crying, by acknowledging that it hurts." I reached out, placing a hand on his arm, carefully avoiding skin contact and denying the urge to feed.

He slumped forward, head bowed and shoulders rounded, tears falling freely. He somehow looked so small, my 6'3" brother, surrendering to the sadness.

I don't know how long we sat there in silence, Sam crying for the loss of Jessica, me crying for Jessica, for the sister I'd never get to form a friendship with and for my broken brother. Eventually the driver's door opened and I slid across the bench seat into Sammy's side, leaving room for Dean to enter the car. I looked at him as he sat down, a frown flickering across his features before he wordlessly started the car and we headed back to the motel.

After Sam cried, he slept, and I sat by his side, ensuring that his pain didn't intrude on his dreams. And that was how we spent the rest of the day, holed up in our motel room, Sammy passed out and Dean and I sitting in silence on either side of him, each resting a hand on our little brother, offering him whatever comfort we could.

Around dinner time Dean left and returned shortly after with cheeseburgers. We ate as Sammy slept on, then Dean settled himself at the table to look through the same documents Sam and I had been examining in the car earlier and I allowed myself to drift slowly into unconsciousness, curled into Sammy's side, my hand resting where I had been stroking his hair, like I used to whenever he had a bad dream as a child.

The next morning, a groggy and rather dehydrated Sam woke and dragged himself into the shower as Dean and I prepared for the day ahead and procured breakfast from the café down the street. Once everyone was washed, dressed and fed, we gathered around the table to discuss the hunt.

Dean slapped two fake IDs down on the table top.

"Homeland Security?" Sam questioned, picking his up, "That's pretty illegal, even for us."

"Yeah, well, it's something new. You know? People haven't seen it a thousand times." Dean rolled his eyes.

"What were you working on last night?" I asked.

"Well, there's definitely EVP on the cockpit voice recorder. Listen."

He pulled Sam's laptop towards him, yanking the headphones out of the jack and clicking play. A barely discernible scratchy voice hissed from the speakers.

"No survivors!"

"'No survivors'? What's that supposed to mean? There were seven survivors."

"Ya got me."

Sam leant back, nursing his coffee, "So, what are you thinking? A haunted flight? There's a long history of spirits and death omens on planes and ships, like phantom travellers. Or remember flight 401?"

Dean frowned slightly, "Right. The one that crashed, the airline salvaged some of its parts, put it in other planes, then the spirit of the pilot and co-pilot haunted those flights."

Sam nodded, "Maybe we got a similar deal."

"All right," I put my empty mug down on the table, "so, survivors, which one do we want to talk to first?"

"Third on the list: Max Jaffey." Sam said with confidence.

I glanced up at him. "Why him?"

"Well, for one," Sam replied, "he's from around here. And two, if anyone saw anything weird, he did."

"What makes you say that?" Dean asked.

"Well, I spoke to his mother." Sam replied darkly, "And she told me where to find him."

The boys headed to Riverfront Psychiatric Hospital to speak to the witness and dropped me off at Jerry's office. I'd spent enough hours holed up alone in motel rooms that if there was another option available, I took it.

Jerry seemed pleased to see me, nattering away, commenting that I wasn't any more talkative than the last time we'd met and that I really ought to outgrow my shyness, that I was a pretty girl, but boys would never take notice of me if I didn't gain a bit of confidence.

"Given how I can imagine my brothers responding if I were to ever bring home a date," I responded dryly, "I'd better stay quiet!"

The man laughed and left me to my own devices. I don't stay quiet because I'm shy though, I simply prefer to observe rather than influence events unfolding before me. My brothers, and more than a few others, could've assured Jerry that being shy certainly wasn't my problem. I shook my head and turned my attention back to the matter at hand.

I used the time to listen back to the recording again, and the EVP distortion, racking my brains to think what might leave EVP (anything non-corporeal) and what might have motivation to kill a plane load of people. Also, the phrase 'no survivors' was rattling uncomfortably around my mind. People had survived, so the creature's intent had failed. But would it attempt to correct that failure? What had the juice for that?

It wasn't long before I got a call from the boys, saying that the witness had seen a man with black eyes open the escape door. Apparently this man had been the passenger seated in front of the witness; I quickly looked up the passenger and gave the boys his address.

A man, a passenger, perhaps some sort of monster, but the EVP suggested not, so maybe the man was possessed. I used Jerry's computer to access the internet and pull up "Search the Web" looking for possessions that might make the hosts eyes turn black, not to mention give them enough strength to open the emergency door on a plane in the middle of a flight. Around about lunch time I took a break, letting Jerry know where I was going, I headed into the passenger side of the airport to find a decent restaurant, anything that served something other than burger or pizza.

After lunch, a very long lunch, as it had taken nearly an hour for my spaghetti and meatballs to arrive (seriously? How do they expect their customers not to miss their flights when they spend that long preparing food?) I returned to Jerry's office.

I'd had plenty of time to think, and I'd pretty much ruled out ghost possession, I'd never heard of it causing black eyes. Very occasionally there might be a visible symptom of the possession, but it was always something of the possessor, and no ghost I'd ever heard of had black eyes; black goo, sure, if it was a very powerful ghost, (which it would need to be if it was possessing people) but not black eyes.

Which narrowed our non-corporeal suspects down to spirits or demons, there's really too many types of spirit out there, and too little known about them, to say if any of them have black eyes, but demons? I really hope we're not tangling with something that nasty.

I'd been hard at work searching for any references to black-eyed spirits when Jerry came bustling in followed by my brothers, in suits.

I gave a whistle, "Looking mighty fine there boys! Going to the school dance?"

Sam snickered and Dean glared at me, apparently I'd touched a nerve, or, given Sam's laughter, maybe I wasn't the first to make that joke.

Jerry set up a professional looking microscope on his desk; I stepped back out of his way, drifting over to the boys. "So?"

"The guy was a perfectly normal dentist. So we went to check out the plane, hence the monkey suits." Dean was pulling at his collar and grimacing.

I reached up to undo the button Dean was struggling with; it _did_ look like the shirt wasn't a good fit on him, the collar uncomfortably tight. "And what did you find?"

"Got an EMF reading off the emergency door handle, and this," Sam held up a small plastic bag of yellow powder. "Jerry's gonna take a look at it for us, see if we can figure out what it is."

He handed the bag over to Jerry who tapped a little of the substance onto a slide and adjusted the microscope. He peered at it for a moment before passing judgement, "Huh. This stuff is covered in sulphur."

"You're sure?"

"Take a look for yourself." He stepped away from the microscope as a banging sound came from outside the office.

"You effin' piece of crap..." I glanced over my shoulder, watching as a frustrated employee banged his fist against some piece of electrical equipment.

"If you fellows will excuse me, I have an idiot to fire." Jerry left to further ruin the poor guy's day "Hey. Einstein. Yeah, you. What the heck you doing? Put the wrench down—"

Dean stepped around the desk and peered into the microscope, "Hmm. You know; there's not too many things that leave behind a sulphuric residue."

Please don't say- "Demonic possession?"

Dean shrugged, "It would explain how a mortal man would have the strength to open up an emergency hatch."

"If the guy was possessed, it's possible." Sam glanced at me, clearly asking for my input, I scowled.

"I was really hoping it wasn't demons." I muttered.

"This goes way beyond floating over a bed or barfing pea soup. I mean it's one thing to possess a person, but to use them to take down an entire airplane?"

"You ever heard of something like this before?" Sam was still watching me, the resident bookworm.

"Planes? No."

"Never." Dean added.

* * *

"So, every religion in every world culture has the concept of demons and demonic possession, right? I mean Christian, Native American, Hindu, you name it." Sam was on his laptop at the table, I stood behind him, re-reading the articles we'd posted up on the wall of the motel room

"Yeah, but none of them describe anything like this." Dean was sitting on one of the beds, a pile of books open in front of his on the other bed.

"Well, that's not exactly true." I explained, "You see according to Japanese beliefs, certain demons are behind certain disasters, both natural and man-made. One causes earthquakes, another causes disease."

"And this one causes plane crashes?" Dean looked pretty incredulous, he rose from the bed and walked towards us "All right, so, what? We have a demon that's evolved with the times and found a way to ratchet up the body count?"

"Yeah. You know, who knows how many planes it's brought down before this one?" Sam reached back and grabbed my hand, placing it on his shoulder. I frowned slightly, but reached out for his pain anyway. It wasn't good for him to continue using my abilities like this, and I had thought we'd made some progress the day before.

Dean snorted, turning away.

"What?" Sam sounded ever so slightly defensive, like he knew better than to ask me to take it away, and was choosing to ask anyway. Dean, however, chose not to address that issue.

"I don't know, man. This isn't our normal gig. I mean, demons, they don't want anything, just death and destruction for its own sake. This is big. And I wish Dad was here."

"Yeah. Me too."

"Me three."

The sombre mood was broken by the ringing of Dean's phone, he pulled it from his pocket, flipping it open and answering, "Hello?"

"Oh, hey, Jerry."

"Wha—Jerry, I'm sorry. What happened?"

"Where'd this happen?"

"I'll try to ignore the irony in that."

"Nothing. Jerry, hang in there, all right? We'll catch up with you soon." he hung up.

"Another crash?" Sam enquired.

"Yeah. Let's go." We moved to grab jackets and I let my hand fall from Sam's shoulder.

"Where?"

Dean stopped and looked at us, "Nazareth."

The plane had hit the ground a few miles outside of Nazareth, and it was pouring a column of black smoke into the sky when we arrived. We'd arrived quickly, but not before the local police had cordoned off the area, the boys grabbed fake IDs and headed out, while I lay down on the back seat out of sight. I didn't envy the boys this part of the job; the smoke smelled heavily of burning fuel and oil, hot metal and burned meat. I could sense no pain from the wreckage, and therefore knew that there were no survivors, but I suspect that the corpses were still in the wreckage. The smell was making me gag.

* * *

"Sulphur?" Dean asked as Jerry straightened from looking into the microscope. He nodded; the boys had returned from the wreck with another bag of yellow powder, their clothes reeking of the smoke that coiled its way into the sky.

"Well, that's great. All right, that's two plane crashes involving Chuck Lambert. This demon sounds like it was after him."

I straightened from where I'd been peering at the computer screen over Sam's shoulder, rubbing slightly at my lower back. "With all due respect to Chuck, if that's the case; that would be the good news."

"What's the bad news?"

"Chuck's plane went down exactly forty minutes into flight. And get this, so did flight 2485." Sam explained.

"Forty minutes? What does that mean?" Jerry questioned, looking around at us.

"It's biblical numerology. For example, Noah's ark, it rained for forty days, Jesus fasted for forty days, Moses spent forty years in the desert before being selected to lead the slaves from Egypt. It is the number of the waiting, the preparation, the test or the punishment." I explained, though by the look on the man's face, it didn't really become any clearer to him.

"I went back," Sam clicked through a couple of pages on the screen in front of him, "and there have been six plane crashes over the last decade that all went down exactly forty minutes in."

"Any survivors?" Dean asked.

"No, or not until now, at least, not until flight 2485, for some reason. On the cockpit voice recorder, remember what the EVP Said?"

"'No survivors'." Dean paused, realisation dawning on his face," It's going after all the survivors. It's trying to finish the job."

* * *

"Really? Well, thank you for taking our survey, and if you do plan to fly, please don't forget your friends at United Britannia Airlines. Thanks." I hung up, sighing in relief, I hate talking to strangers on the phone. Okay, so maybe I'm a little shy. "All right. That takes care of Blaine Sanderson and Dennis Holloway. They're not flying anytime soon."

"So our only wildcard is the flight attendant Amanda Walker." Sam was ticking the names off a list as Dean drove.

"Right. Her sister Karen said her flight leaves Indianapolis at eight pm. It's her first night back on the job."

"That sounds like just our luck." Dean muttered.

"Dean, this is a five-hour drive, man, even with you behind the wheel." Sam was looking at Dean with wide eyes.

"Call Amanda's mobile again, see if we can't head her off at the pass." Dean commanded.

"I already left her three voice messages." I replied, "She must have turned her mobile off."

"God, we're never gonna make it." Sam stared out of the windscreen, his voice filled with horror.

"We'll make it." Dean pressed down harder on the accelerator and the Impala's engine gave a throaty roar as we sped through the twilight.

The car tyres squealed as Dean threw her around the corners of the parking garage looking for a space, we finally found one and parked, spilling out of the car, Dean raced towards the entrance of the airport.

"Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa!" Sam called, causing Dean to halt and look back at us. "Dean. We're about to walk into an airport?"

Dean looked back, shaking his head, there followed one of the boys' silent conversations before Dean sighed, exasperated and stalked back to the car, opening the boot and divesting himself of his weapons.

"I feel naked."

Sam and I followed Dean's example, smirking slightly at our older brother before locking the car and taking off at high speed towards the airport. We raced through the door marked 'departures', dodging other travellers as we made for the overhead display boards which showed the flight information for all the flights which would be departing soon.

"Right there." Sam pointed up at one of the boards, "They're boarding in thirty minutes."

"Okay. We still have some cards to play. We need to find a phone."

I followed my tall brothers, who could presumably see a phone from up there, because they moved straight towards a pillar, which as we got closer I was able to see had a telephone at eye-level. Dean picked it up.

"Hi. Gate thirteen."

"I'm trying to contact an Amanda Walker. She's a flight attendant on flight, um...flight 4-2-4."

There was a pause as we waited for Amanda to pick up, "Come on."

"Miss Walker. Hi, this is Dr. James Hetfield from St. Francis Memorial Hospital. We have a Karen Walker here."

"Nothing serious, just a minor car accident, but she was injured, so—"

Dean paused. "You what?"

"Uh, well...there must be some mistake."

Sam stepped close to Dean's shoulder, trying to hear what's going on.

"Guilty as charged." Dean was clearly moving to the part where he just wings it and hopes.

"He's really sorry."

"Yes, but...he really needs to see you tonight, so—"

"Don't be like that. Come on. The guy's a mess. Really. It's pathetic." The 'I have no idea what I'm doing' look on Dean's face would have been funny any other time."Oh, yeah."

"No, no. Wait, Amanda. Amanda! Damn it! So close." He hung up the phone and turned to face us.

"All right," said Sam, "it's time for plan B. We're getting on that plane."

Dean's eye's flew wide open and he held out a hand in a 'slow down' motion, "Whoa, whoa, now just hold on a second."

"Dean, that plane is leaving with over a hundred passengers on board, and if we're right," Sam leant in and lowered his voice, trying not to alarm anyone, "that plane is gonna crash."

"I know!" Dean seemed to be seeing the same problem that I'd spotted.

"Okay. So we're getting on the plane, we need to find that demon and exorcise it. I'll get the tickets. You get whatever you can out of the trunk. Whatever that will make it through the security. Meet me back here in five minutes."

Sam moved to leave, but Dean stood frozen, and I stayed with him, concerned by the waves of… so-not-okay-with-this coming off him. It wasn't fear or discomfort, more of a 'nope'. "Are you okay?"

"No, not really." He confessed.

"What? What's wrong?" Sam asked.

"Well, I kind of have this problem with, uh..."

"Flying?"

"It's never really been an issue until now." Dean defended himself.

"You're joking, right?"

"Do I look like I'm joking? Why do you think I drive everywhere, Sam?"

"It's fine," I interjected. "We'll go."

"What?" A flash of alarm crossed Dean's features.

"We'll get this one, you wait here, or come meet us, where's this flight going anyway?"

"What are you, nuts? You said it yourself, the plane's gonna crash." Dean really wasn't calming down any.

"Dean, we can do it together, or we can do this one by ourselves. I'm not seeing a third option, here."

"Come on! Really? Man..."

Half an hour later we were all sat on the plane as it taxied out to the runway. Dean was anxiously reading the flight safety card.

"Just try to relax." Sam murmured from Dean's other side.

"Just try to shut up." Came the terse reply.

The plane accelerated along the runway and with a little swoop in my stomach, we were airborne, Dean gripping the armrests and emitting waves of discomfort, jumping at every little bump and sound. He seemed particularly disturbed by the sound of the wheels being lifted up into the plane. Sam was turning his face away to hide his smirk, and I was having a little trouble hiding my amusement myself; this wasn't funny and Dean wouldn't appreciate us laughing about it. There'd be plenty of time to tease him once we were all safely back on the ground.

We'd been in the air a few minutes Dean had his eyes shut, he was gripping my hand tightly and he was humming to himself. I'd been doing what I could do draw out his distress and calm him down and Sam had pretty much been leaving us to it.

"You're humming Metallica?" Sam asked suddenly

"Calms me down." Wasn't really working, to be honest.

"Look, man, I get you're nervous, all right? But you got to stay focused."

Dean nodded, "Okay."

"I mean," continued Sam, "we got thirty-two minutes and counting to track this thing down, or whoever it's possessing, anyway, and perform a full-on exorcism."

"Yeah, on a crowded plane; that's gonna be easy." Dean's voice was full of all the sarcasm that point deserved, but the panic was fading slightly.

"Just take it one step at a time, all right?" Sam kept his tone business-like, avoiding patronising at all costs, "Now, who is it possessing?"

"It's usually gonna be somebody with some sort of weakness, you know, a chink in the armour that the demon can worm through. Somebody with an addiction or some sort of emotional distress." I flicked my eye's towards Dean as I said it, his distress was so 'loud' I couldn't 'hear' anyone else, I didn't know if they were in distress or not.

"Well," reasoned Sam, "this is Amanda's first flight after the crash. If I were her, I'd be pretty messed up."

Dean hummed agreement, then turned to the flight attendant who was passing us. "Excuse me. Are you Amanda?"

"No, I'm not." The woman replied with a smile.

"Oh, my mistake." Dean still looked shaky and the woman just smiled at him and moved on, continuing with whatever job we'd interrupted her in.

I leant into the aisle, looking around for another flight attendant, there was a woman fussing with a refreshment trolley at the back of the plane, I sat back in my chair and nodded my head in her direction.

Dean nodded, "All right, so I'll go talk to her, and, uh, I'll get a read on her mental state."

"What if she's already possessed?" asked Sam.

"There's ways to test that." Dean replied, digging into his bag and retrieving a flattened plastic water bottle full of water. "I brought holy water."

"No." Sam grabbed the bottle from dean and tucked it into his hoodie pocket. "I think we can go more subtle. If she's possessed, she'll flinch at the name of God."

"Oh. Nice." Dean nodded and stood to go, I pulled my knees up, twisting slightly to get out of his way as he edged passed me.

"Hey." We both turned to look at Sam.

"What?"

"Say it in Latin."

"I know."

Dean edged a little further passed me.

"Okay. Hey!"

"What?!" This had better be important, Sammy. This twisted position was hardly something that could be described as comfortable.

"Uh, in Latin, it's 'Christo'." Seriously, Sam?

"Dude, I know! I'm not an idiot!" Dean made his way to the back of the plane, thumping the back of one of the seats after some mild turbulence makes the plane shudder.

Sam and started a whispered debate while he was gone, we'd each found the Rituale Romanum, the only exorcism endorsed by the Catholic church, in our research, but disagreed on how it ought to be used. I was fairly certain that most of it was flowery and overly verbose, that it could be cut down significantly to the active working parts, Sam preferred to use the whole pretentious thing.

"All right, well, she's got to be the most well-adjusted person on the planet." Dean dropped into the aisle seat, I'd moved over so he would have to climb over me again.

"You said 'Christo'?" Sam asked.

"Yeah."

"And?"

"There's no demon in her. There's no demon getting in her."

"So, if it's on the plane," Sam reasoned, "it can be anyone. Anywhere."

The plane shook uncomfortably, and I found myself reaching for Dean in alarm, not that he was any calmer than me. "Come on! That can't be normal!"

"Hey, hey, it's just a little turbulence." Little? Sammy? A little?

"Sam, this plane is going to crash, okay? So quit treating me like I'm friggin' four."

"You need to calm down." I suspect Sam might have been speaking to both of us, but I appreciate him not drawing attention to the fact that my heartbeat is currently much higher than is normal for a prangeni.

"Well, I'm sorry I can't."

Sam gave me a meaningful look as he spoke to Dean, "Yes, you can."

"Dude, stow the touchy-feely, self-help yoga crap, it's not helping." I focused on my breathing, then my heartrate. It might not be helping Dean, but the 'yoga crap' was working for me.

Sam leant over me, getting right in Dean's face and speaking urgently in a low but commanding tone, "Listen, if you're panicked, you're wide open to demonic possession, so you need to calm yourself down. Right now." Another meaningful look sent my way.

Now that I had a better grip on my own emotions I was able to focus on Dean's, I tugged on his panic and alarm, skimming from the top as the rather spicy forms of pain settled and faded as Dean took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Good. Now, I found an exorcism in here that I think is gonna work. The Rituale Romanum." I scowled at Sam, knowing that with Dean so jumpy we needed to have a solid plan, not an argument, and that Sam had just taken advantage of that to ensure that we would be using the whole exorcism.

"What do we have to do?"

"It's two parts." Sam explained, "The first part expels the demon from the victim's body. It makes it manifest, which actually makes it more powerful."

"More powerful?"

"Yeah." Which is one of the reasons why my edited exorcism would have been a better option…

"How?"

"Well, it doesn't need to possess someone anymore. It can just wreak havoc on its own."

"Oh. And why is that a good thing?" Yes, Sam, please explain…

"Well, because the second part sends the bastard back to hell once and for all." Which my version would have jumped straight to.

"First things first, we got to find it."

Dean pulled out his home made EMF reader and walked to the back of the plane fiddling with it, when he passed us on his journey to the front he was pretty much waving it at people, which no doubt had garnered a few odd looks, but we didn't have time to worry about that now. When Dean had reached the front of the plane Sam and I joined him, Sam clapping a hand on his shoulder and making the poor guy jump.

"Ah! Don't do that." I gave Sammy one of my best scowls, but, as he was facing the other way, it was wasted. I'll have to speak to that boy later.

"Anything?"

"No, nothing. How much time we got?"

"Fifteen minutes. Maybe we missed somebody."

"Maybe the thing's just not on the plane." Dean commented, with hope in his tone.

"You believe that?"

"Well, I will if you will."

Suddenly the lights on the EMF meter lit up and the earbud hanging around Dean's neck start to squeal. A little way in front of us the toilet door swung open and the co-pilot emerged, closing the door behind him and turning to return to the cockpit.

"Christo."

The co-pilot turned slowly to face us, his eyes a pure black. Then he retreated into the cockpit, locking the door behind himself, as per standard procedure.

We looked at each other in alarm before having a furiously whispered debate.

"She's not gonna believe this." Sam groused as we headed to the back of the plane to ask Amanda for her help.

"Twelve minutes, dude." Was Dean's only reply, he was right, we were running out of time.

"Oh, hi." Amanda greeted as we stepped into the… ante-chamber, "Flight's not too bumpy for you, I hope."

"Actually," replied Dean, "that's kind of what we need to talk to you about."

Sam closed the curtain behind us, giving an illusion of privacy and hopefully deadening the sound of the conversation we were about to have.

Amanda looked a little uncertain, "Um, okay. What can I do for you?"

"All right, this is gonna sound nuts, but we just don't have time for the whole "the truth is out there" speech right now."

Sam interrupted, "All right, look, we know you were on flight 2485."

Amanda's smile disappeared, and she glanced between my brothers apprehensively. "Who are you guys?"

Sam ignored her question, "Now, we've spoken to some of the other survivors. We know something brought down that plane and it wasn't a mechanical failure."

"We need your help because we need to stop it from happening again. Here. Now."

"I'm sorry, I—I'm very busy. I have to go back—" She tried to brush past us, towards the seating area but I stepped forward, putting my hands on her shoulders to prevent her from leaving, hopefully I was less threatening than my brothers.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a second. We're not gonna hurt you, okay? But listen to me, uh..." How do I break this to her? Stuff it, there's no time; band-aid method it is. "The pilot in 2485, Chuck Lambert. He's dead."

"Wait. What?" Amanda asked, "What, Chuck is dead?"

"He died in a plane crash." Dean elaborated, "Now, that's two plane crashes in two months. That doesn't strike you as strange?"

"Look, there was something wrong with 2485." Sam jumped in, "Now maybe you sensed it, maybe you didn't. But there's something wrong with this flight, too."

"Amanda, you have to believe us." I looked at her with mild desperation, if she didn't believe us, if she thought we were crazy…

"On..." She started, hesitantly, "on 2485, there was this man. He...had these eyes."

"Yes!" Sam pounced, "That's exactly what we're talking about."

"I don't understand, what are you asking me to do?"

"Okay. The co-pilot, we need you to bring him back here." Dean stepped into the role of leader for the first time since we'd left the ground.

"Why? What does he have to do with anything?" The woman was clearly utterly baffled.

"Don't have time to explain. We just need to talk to him. Okay?" We would be talking, but the demon in him _really_ wouldn't like what we had to say.

"How am I supposed to go in the cockpit and get the co-pilot—"

"Do whatever it takes." Sam interrupted, "Tell him there's something broken back here, whatever will get him out of that cockpit."

"Do you know that I could lose my job if you—"

"Okay, well you're gonna lose a lot more if you don't help us out." Dean pointed out.

She hesitated, and I held my breath, she might still decide that we were crazy. "Okay." I breathed again. She stepped through the curtain and we moved so that we could watch through the gaps at the edges as she knocked on the door of the cockpit. It opened and the co-pilot appeared, they spoke briefly, though even I couldn't hear what was said over the rest of the noise on the plane, then the co-pilot leant back through the door before closing it behind him and following Amanda back towards us.

Sam pulled out the holy water, Dean pulled out Dad's journal and handed it to me, I stepped into the far corner as I started leafing through the pages looking for the exorcism Sam had decided upon.

The co-pilot stepped through the curtain, "Yeah, what's the problem?" and was immediately punched in the face by Dean. He fell to the floor and Sam and Dean pinned him down, putting duct tape over his mouth.

"Wait!" Cried Amanda, "What are you doing? You said you were just gonna talk to him."

"We are gonna talk to him." Responded Dean, before Sam splashed the demon with holy water which sizzled and burned on his skin.

"Oh, my god. What's wrong with him?"

"Look." I told the flustered air hostess, "We need you calm. We need you outside the curtain."

"Well, I don't underst—I don't know—"

I gripped her shoulders to make her look at me, "Don't let anybody in, okay? Can you do that? Can you do that? Amanda?"

"Okay. Okay." She left, still looking rather alarmed. I rifled through the journal, having lost my page.

"Hurry up, Ali. I don't know how much longer we can hold him."

At last! Here it is; "Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino—"

Kingdoms of the earth, sing onto God, sing praises to the Lord… see? Flowery, verbose and excessive.

The demon got an arm free and smacked Dean in the side of the head, knocking him away from it, before ripping the tape from its mouth and turning to Sam and taunting him in a voice that sounded like many evil creatures were all speaking at once.

"I know what happened to your girlfriend! She must have died screaming! Even now, she's burning!"

Dean recovered and held the Demon down again, while Sam appeared stunned, he loosened his grip on the demon and it pulled an arm free, reaching for my ankle where I stood, still reading in the back corner. Before it could do anything more than grab at me, black smoke started pouring from the man's mouth. I paused my reading, watching, hypnotised as the smoke rose up and entered the vent.

"Where'd it go?" Asked Sam, dropping the man's arm

"It's in the plane." answered Dean, "Hurry up! We got to finish it."

I hurriedly looked back at the page I was reading from, but the plane gave a sudden heave upwards before seeming to slam down and then tilting alarmingly into a dive. I was thrown to the floor and the journal slipped from my hand and slid through the curtain and down the aisle beyond. Sam dived after it as the lights failed and Dean was thrown against the door, splaying his arms against it to brace himself in the corner and screaming.

The noise of it! The engines whining as they seemed to push us faster towards the ground, the passengers and Dean screaming, the fear and various small hurts buzzing in the air, and somewhere beyond the curtain Sam's voice shouting in Latin as he finished the exorcism. I lay where I had fallen, not attempting to stand, but simply to hold on and the plane bucked and plunged.

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Lightening seemed to crackle across and through the body of the plane, and then it simply levelled out. Dean and I picked ourselves up, reaching for each other in search of comfort to help to slow our racing hearts and the voices of the passengers changed from screams to sobs of relief and questions as to whether people where alright.

Dean and I stepped up to the curtain and opened it to see Sam rising to his feet, hazel eyes wide and clearly still a little high from the adrenaline.

We didn't return to our seats, we just sat ourselves down in the corner, Dean and I still hugging each other and quietly sang Metallica songs for the rest of the flight.

The plane made an emergency landing at the nearest airport; the pilot must have radioed ahead the situation, because paramedics, FBI and other officials were already waiting to greet the shaken passengers and crew.

Sam, Dean and I fended off the paramedic's questions asking if we were all okay, and fortunately the FBI were more interested in talking to the crew than any of the passengers. We stood for a while, watching all the hundred or so people whose lives we'd saved that night. Amanda was a short way off, talking to an FBI agent; she looked up and straight at us, 'thank you' she mouthed, before returning to her interview.

"Let's get out of here."

We turned to leave and I glanced up at Sam, the scent of mental torment was fairly pouring off him, "You okay?"

"It knew," he took a couple of longer paces before turning to face us, "it knew about Jessica."

"Sam, these things," Dean started in his comforting big brother voice, "they, they read minds. They lie. Okay? That's all it was."

Sam looked at the ground, nodding slightly, but still troubled, "Yeah."

"Come on." Dean led the way out of the airport and to the bus station; we were nearly 200 miles away from Baby.

The next day we'd picked up the Impala and where chatting with Jerry, letting him know that the problem was solved and the friendly skies were friendly once more.

"Nobody knows what you guys did, but I do. A lot of people could have been killed." Sam and Dean shook his hand, and I received a brief hug, "Your dad's gonna be real proud."

"We'll see you around, Jerry."

We headed to the car before Dean turned back, "You know, Jerry. I meant to ask you, how did you get my mobile number, anyway? I've only had it for like six months."

"Your dad gave it to me."

We stared at him and Sam was first to regain the power of speech, "What?"

"When did you talk to him?" Dean was a little more articulate.

"I mean, I didn't exactly talk to him, but I called his number." Jerry explained, "His voice message said to give you a call. Thanks again, guys."

Jerry lifted a hand in farewell and walked away, we all looked at each other before silently getting in the car and driving just outside the airport before Dean pulled over and we got out of the car, gathering to lean on the hood.

"This doesn't make any sense." I told them, "I've called Dad's number like fifty times. It's been out of service."

Dean dialled and pressed speaker phone, holding it so Sammy and I could hear too, it went straight to answering machine. "This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean. 785-555-0179. He can help."

Sam took a deep breath through his nose before pursing his lips and stalking back to the car, Dean and I just looked at each other; a little lost. Why can't Dad just talk to us? What's so dangerous that we can't be allowed to know anything about it? Or even where he is?

Dean hangs up, returning the phone to his pocket as he returns to the car and I drift after him.

Is Dad still even alright?


	6. Bloody Mary

"Sam, wake up." Dean reached across and smacked Sammy's shoulder.

We'd arrived a little while ago, but Sam was finally getting some rest, so Dean and I had been talking quietly about the case, my hand resting on Sam's forehead.

Sam jolted up, dislodging my hand and glancing about, "I take it I was having a nightmare."

"Yeah, another one."

"I'm sorry, Sammy."

He flashed me a grin, "Hey, at least I got some sleep."

"You know, sooner or later we're gonna have to talk about this."

"Are we here?" Sam changed the subject.

"Yup. Welcome to Toledo, Ohio."

Sam picked up the newspaper I'd found the job in, a circle around Steven Shoemaker's obituary. There wasn't much written in the paper, but it did mention that he'd been found by his daughter, bleeding from the eyes. Rather gruesome and a little too sensationalist for an obituary column in truth, but it did look like our kind of weird.

"So what do you think really happened to this guy?" Sam asked.

"That's what we're gonna find out." Dean replied opening his door, "Let's go."

Sammy followed him and the two boys headed into the large and imposing hospital we were parked in front of. I watched them go, frustrated that, once again, I couldn't go with them. Human children feel like it'll be forever until they grow up and are treated like adults; it's taking three times as long for me! I'm the oldest and yet I still get treated like I'm fourteen! Infuriating! On the other hand, they are going to look at a corpse, so maybe I'm not really missing out on much there.

It didn't take the guys long before they were back, with nauseating tales of liquefied eyeballs and skulls full of blood, and a copy of the police report which had the Shoemaker's home address in it. We headed there next, to talk to the daughter who'd had the traumatising experience of finding him and to take a look at the crime scene. The funeral was still in progress when we arrived, the house filled with people wearing dark clothing and speaking in hushed voices.

"Feel like we're underdressed." Commented Dean, he wasn't wrong. The guys were in their usual hunting gear of jeans, t-shirt, flannel and jacket, and I was wearing my normal, slightly more eclectic attire, today it was a thankfully rather muted tank top, a loose, grey jumper, knitted rainbow shawl and black jeans. I removed the shawl, self-consciously.

We continued through the house and I followed the beacons of pain to the back garden, where I found them, two girls; one a bit younger than I appeared to be, and the other older and surrounded by friends.

Sam and Dean addressed the older girl, the one who'd found her father, "You must be Donna, right?"

I stood in front of the younger girl, "Hi, you're Lily, aren't you?"

She glanced up at me and nodded, her face didn't really reflect the levels of pain, of loss, mourning, and most interestingly, guilt, that I could sense pouring off of her.

"I'm Alison, I wanted to offer my condolences, I can't imagine what you're going through."

The girl looked down again, biting her lip. I paused, and then bent my knees, crouching down in front of her, bringing myself into her line of sight again.

"Sometimes it helps to talk, especially to someone you don't know, someone you won't ever have to see again if you don't want to." I said quietly, the girl stared at me for a second, then grabbed my wrist where I had rested my hands on my knees and jumped up, pulling me away from the group. We practically ran into the house and Lily almost stumbled in her haste to climb the stairs, tears starting to pour down her cheeks. She opened a bedroom door, almost threw me in and slammed the door behind us.

"TALK!" She screamed. "Talk? Why? I've been talking ever since I killed him and no one will listen! It's my fault! I know it is! But no one listens to me…"

She broke down in sobs. I had frozen, my eyes going wide when she had first started to shout, but now, with her initial burst of emotions fading she seemed to get smaller, curling in on herself as the pain grew and I came forward, putting my arms around the distraught girl. I didn't say anything, I just let her cry.

God, this was awkward.

It didn't take long before her sobs subsided and I pulled back, pulling a tissue from my bag and letting her wipe her face. "What made it your fault, Lily? My Dad told me it was a stroke."

Lily shook her head, still sniffling, "It was Bloody Mary! She took his eyes; that's what she does!" Her voice lowered as the guilt rose up inside her, a sweet, almost rotten 'smell', "I summoned her and she k-killed him. I didn't mean it, we- we were just p-playing, but then he- sh-she-" and she buried her face in the tissue again.

I guided her over to sit on her bed, sitting down beside her and rubbing circles on her back. "But in the stories," I said quietly, as she leaned into me and damp tears started to soak into the shoulder of my jumper, "Mary kills the person who summoned her, not anyone else. It can't have been her, Lily. I'm sure it was just a coincidence."

She shook her head, not lifting it from my shoulder, "He d-died in front of the mirror, and she t-took his eyes." Her voice muffled by my jumper.

"Oh, Lily, it wasn't your fault, you'd never hurt anyone." I rested my head on the top of hers, still rubbing circles on her back. "It _must_ have been a stoke, Mary wouldn't have gone after him if he didn't summon her, and you're fine, so she's probably not even real, just some silly ghost story."

The girl cried quietly for a while longer before her breathing deepened and I lowered her carefully onto her pillows. My mind was racing; Bloody Mary was a widespread story with thousands of variations. Only the summoning ritual remained the same; look into a mirror by candle light, chant Bloody Mary three times and blow out the light.

This was, however, hardly the first time Bloody Mary had been summoned, and no one had ever died from it that I'd ever heard. Although what I'd told Lily had only been partly true; in some versions of the tale Mary killed the person who summoned her, in others she killed a member of their family.

I left the room quietly, carefully closing the door behind me and tiptoeing away from it towards the bathroom. Lily had said that he'd died in front of the mirror, so I wasn't too surprised to find my brothers already searching the room.

Sam was examining the bloodstains on the floor, while Dean was poking a squealing EMF meter into the medicine cabinet.

"The Bloody Mary legend" I announced, leaning on the doorframe, "Dad ever find any evidence that it was a real thing?"

"Not that I know of." Answered Dean.

"Bloody Mary?" Sam questioned, "I mean, everywhere else all over the country, kids will play Bloody Mary, and as far as we know, nobody dies from it."

"Yeah, well, maybe everywhere it's just a story, but here it's actually happening." I replied darkly.

Sam paused, standing from his examination of the floor, "The place where the legend began? But according to the legend, the person who says B—" Sam looked at the medicine cabinet mirror, which now faced him, and closed it before continuing. "The person who says you know what gets it. But here—"

"Shoemaker gets it instead, yeah." Finished Dean. "Never heard of anything like that before. Still, the guy did die right in front of the mirror, and the way the legend goes, you know who scratches your eyes out."

"It's worth checking in to." Sam mused.

I shook my head, looking up at the boys in wonder, "It's a story told by teenage girls, to teenage girls, all over the country. You have an expert on the matter right here." I reminded them.

"What are you doing up here?"

A blond woman, possibly one of Donna, the older sister's friends, was coming along the hall behind me.

"We—we, had to go to the bathroom." Dean explained. I gave him a withering look; that was the best he could come up with?

"Who are you?" The girl demanded.

"Like we said downstairs, we worked with Donna's dad."

"He was a day trader or something. He worked by himself."

"No, I know, I meant—"

"And all those weird questions downstairs, what was that? So you tell me what's going on, or I start screaming."

Sam, seeing that Dean wasn't really succeeding in getting us out of this, decided to step in, "All right, all right. We think something happened to Donna's dad."

"Yeah, a stroke."

"That's not a sign of a typical stroke." He gestured to the bloodstains on the floor, "We think it might be something else."

"Like what?" The girl was still eyeing the bloodstains.

"Honestly?" She looked back up at Sam, "We don't know yet. But we don't want it to happen to anyone else. That's the truth."

"So, if you're gonna scream," concluded Dean, "go right ahead."

"Who are you, cops?"

Sam looked at Dean over his shoulder, "Something like that." Dean supplied.

"I'll tell you what. Here." Sam reached into his pocked pulling out a pen and paper to give the girl his number, "If you think of anything, you or your friends notice anything strange, out of the ordinary...just give us a call."

* * *

The library was poorly lit; maybe they were saving money on the electricity bills or something because only about half the lights were on, most of the light in the room was provided by the sunlight filtering in through the windows. I'd told the boys what Lily had said in the car on the way here and I'd told them a few of the variations of Bloody Mary that I'd heard at various sleepovers throughout the years of being in a new middle school every few months; the new kid always gets invited to things, everyone wants to be your friend.

"All right," said Dean, "say Bloody Mary really is haunting this town. There's gonna be some sort of proof—like a local woman who died nasty."

"Yeah but a legend this widespread it's hard. I mean, there's like 50 versions of who she actually is. One story says she's a witch, another says she's a mutilated bride, there's a lot more." Replied Sam.

"In some versions she kills the summoner, in others a member of their family, in some versions she simply pulls the summoner into the mirror, never to be seen again."

"All right so what are we supposed to be looking for?"

"Every version's got a few things in common." I told them, "It's always a woman named Mary, and she always dies right in front of a mirror. So we've gotta search local newspapers—public records as far back as they go. See if we can find a Mary who fits the bill."

"Well that sounds annoying." Dean commented.

"No, it won't be so bad," contradicted Sam, "as long as we-" he stopped, looking at the computers, all labelled 'out of order' and chuckled dryly, "I take it back. This will be very annoying."

We'd stayed in the library until it closed, then took out whatever references we could, local histories and the like, and retired to our motel room to continue the search. At some point in the early morning Sam passed out on the bed. I took my last book to sit next to him, one hand on his forehead, the other turning the pages of the book in my lap.

I eventually closed the book and put it off to the side, looking up at Dean and shaking my head with a frown.

"Not many local women named Mary." I commented, receiving a grunt in reply.

I lay down on the bed, closing my aching eyes and hugging my little brother, drifting slowly to sleep to the sound of Dean turning pages and the occasional car driving past.

A gasp and a small jolt of the shoulder I was sleeping on woke me, sunlight shining through the net curtain over the window.

"Why'd you let me fall asleep?"

"Cause I'm an awesome brother. So, what did you dream about?"

"Lollipops and candy canes." He quipped, his voice flat.

"Yeah, sure."

"Did you find anything?" Sam asked.

"Oh, besides a whole new level of frustration?" Sam and I sat up slightly on the bed, I rubbed my eyes. "No. I've looked at everything. A few local women, a Laura and a Catherine committed suicide in front of a mirror, and a giant mirror fell on a guy named Dave, but uh, no Mary."

The bed bounced slightly as Sam dropped his upper body back down onto it. "Maybe we just haven't found it yet."

"I've also been searching for strange deaths in the area, you know...eyeball bleeding, that sort of thing. There's nothing. Whatever's happening here, maybe it just ain't Mary."

"Or her name isn't Mary." I said, "That might just be the name someone gave her when they couldn't remember the name of the girl in the story and it stuck. Have there been any murders with anything eyeball-y about them?"

"Then why would saying 'Bloody Mary' be the way to summon her?" Dean replied.

"Perhaps it's the name of a type of ghost, rather than an individual." There certainly were names for subsets of ghosts that died a particular way, or wanted a particular thing.

Our debate was cut short by the ringing of Sam's phone.

* * *

"And they found her on the bathroom floor. And her—her eyes. They were gone." The girl who'd confronted us at the Shoemaker's house, Charlie, had called to report the death of her friend Jill the previous night. We'd met her in the park, where sunlight and the laughter of playing children contrasted sharply with the girl crying on the bench beside me.

"I'm sorry." Sam offered, as I rubbed her knee. Usually I would try to make the pain easier for her, but I was so well-fed with Sam's pain, I wasn't sure I could eat any more.

"And she said it." The girl continued, "I heard her say it. But it couldn't be because of that. I'm insane, right?"

"No, you're not insane." Dean stated firmly.

"Oh God, that makes me feel so much worse."

"Look. We think something's happening here, something that can't be explained."

"And we're gonna stop it but we could use your help." Dean finished Sam's sentence and I was reminded again just how close my brothers were.

* * *

Sam offered me a boost to get up onto the roof outside Jill's bedroom window. I gave him a bitchface and jumped, grabbing the edge and hauling myself upwards, being much stronger than I look is one of the advantages of being half prangeni. My brothers follow me up and there's a short, tense wait, hoping none of the neighbours spot us, before Charlie opens the window from inside and I crawl through, followed by Sam, the duffel bag of our kit that Sam catches and finally Dean, who closes the window and the curtains behind him.

"What did you tell Jill's mom?" Sam asks, going through the bag which he'd placed on the bed.

"Just that I needed some time alone with Jill's pictures and things." She replied, shaking out her hands, "I hate lying to her."

"Trust us, this is for the greater good. Hit the lights."

"What are you guys looking for?" Charlie asked, watching me switch the light off.

"We'll let you know as soon as we find it." Dean muttered, fiddling with the EMF meter.

"Hey, night vision?" Sam asked, holding the digital camera out to Dean, who reached over, switching it on for him. "Perfect."

Dean, realising that the camera was pointing his way, struck a pose, "Do I look like Paris Hilton?"

Sam gave Dean a bitchface before crossing the room, opening the closet and using the camera to check the edges of the mirror on the back of the door.

"So, I don't get it." He commented, "I mean...the first victim didn't summon Mary, and the second victim did. How's she choosing them?"

"Beats me."

"I want to know why Jill said it in the first place." Dean looked at Charlie, who shifted guiltily.

"It's just a joke."

"Yeah, well, somebody's gonna say it again, it's just a matter of time."

Sam joined me in the bathroom, where I was touching the spot on the floor where Jill had died, trying to sense any echoes that remained. He ran the camera along the edges of the mirror as I was concluding that the traces were too muddied by the family and the paramedics to be of any use.

"Hey." We all turned to look at Sam, "There's a black light in the trunk, right?"

Dean went to fetch the black light from the car, while I helped Sam to remove the mirror from the wall.

"There's pain in this mirror, Sam," I murmured, keeping my fingers on the glass as he carried it into the bedroom to lay it on the bed. "Pain and anger, fury, betrayal… different from Jill's I think, the ghost perhaps?"

Dean climbed back through the window and Sam started ripping the paper off the back of the mirror. The light revealed a handprint, and a name.

"Gary Bryman?" Charlie read.

"You know who that is?"

She shook her head, "No."

We photographed the message before rehanging the mirror and leaving the way we had come. We met up with Charlie again on the corner of the street and headed back to the dim and depressing library. Dean and the girl waited outside while Sam and I searched back through the local papers, the computers were still 'out of order'. Eventually we found what we were searching for and joined the others where they were waiting for us on a bench outside.

"So," Sam announced, "Gary Bryman was an 8-year-old boy. Two years ago he was killed in a hit and run. The car was described as a black Toyota Camry. But nobody got the plates or saw the driver."

"Oh my God."

"What?"

"Jill drove that car."

* * *

When we arrived at the Shoemaker's house I left it to the boys to investigate the mirror, there was nothing I'd be able to see that they couldn't, and I wanted to check on Lily.

I knocked on her bedroom door and was greeted by an angry "What!?"

"Umm, Lily? It's Alison, I was wondering how you're doing?"

There was a short pause then the door opened. Lily didn't look as well put together as she had at the funeral; she was wearing tatty clothes, her hair unbrushed and her eyes and nose red and swollen.

"What are you doing here?" She asked in a small voice.

"I wanted to check on you, make sure you know that what you said before can't be true."

She opened the door, with a sniff and let me in, walking back to her bed and dropping down onto it, pulling a stuffed bear to her chest and hugging it close.

"Everyone says that." She said, so quietly I barely caught it.

"Do you believe them?" I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room.

She looked down to the floor, shrugging her shoulders slightly.

"Why don't you believe it, Lily?"

"Because I said it, and then… and I just _know_ , okay? I can feel it inside."

I considered the child, clutching her bear with tears running down her cheeks, and reflected that grief councilor wasn't really in a hunter's job description.

"But," I hesitated, hoping I wasn't about to mess this up, "you know that Bloody Mary is just a story, right?"

She nodded, "I- I think so."

"Ghosts, magic, summoning rituals, they're not real." I told her quietly, because sometimes a lie really is the kindest option.

The girl nodded again, "So, why won't the feeling go away?" Her voice was small, lost and broken.

I moved across the room to join her on the bed, rubbing circles on her back as I had done the last time I was in this room. "It's probably something called survivor's guilt," I explained, "my Dad told me about it. It's where the survivors feel that they could or should have done something to prevent something bad happening to someone else, even though there was nothing that they could have possibly done."

Lily sighed, burying her nose into her bear, "Well, it sucks."

"Yeah, but it'll fade, in time. Just keep remembering that there was nothing you could have done any different that would have stopped it from happening. It wasn't your fault."

She nodded and we sat in silence until her older sister stormed past the open doorway and slammed the door to her own room.

"That's probably my cue to leave," I stood slowly; "You're going to be okay, Lily." I walked to the doorway and paused, turning back, "My dad travels a lot for his work, I think this will be the last time I see you."

She stood, placing the bear down on the bed beside her and came and gave me a hug, whispering "Thank you" in my ear.

I returned the hug and pulled away with a small smile before joining my brothers at the foot of the stairs. We left Charlie at the house and returned to the motel, the boys giving me the debrief on what they'd found. The mirror had had Linda Shoemaker written on the back, which was the name of Donna and Lily's mother who had died as a result of an 'accidental' OD.

We went back to the motel and Sam managed to get the WiFi up and running, lord knows how he managed it, but I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth. We hooked up the printer and started the search for Mary in earnest.

"Wait, wait, wait, you're doing a nationwide search?"

"Yep. The NCIC, the FBI database—at this point any Mary who died in front of a mirror is good enough for me." Dean had a point, there just weren't any in this town, we'd spent hours searching.

"But if she's haunting the town, she should have died in the town."

"I'm telling you there's nothing local, I've checked. So unless you got a better idea—"

"Could be that her spirit is tied to an object?" I offered. The boys fell quiet, each contemplating the idea of trying to hunt for an unknown object through the entire town.

"The way Mary's choosing her victims," Sam broke the silence, "it seems like there's a pattern."

"I know, I was thinking the same thing." Dean replied.

"With Mr Shoemaker and Jill's hit and run." Sam continued as if Dean hadn't spoken.

"Both had secrets where people died."

"Right. I mean there's a lot of folklore about mirrors-that they reveal all your lies, all your secrets, that they're a true reflection of your soul, which is why it's bad luck to break them."

"Right, right. So maybe if you've got a secret, I mean like a really nasty one where someone died, then Mary sees it, and punishes you for it."

"Whether you're the one that summoned her or not."

"Take a look at this" Dean said, hitting print. The printer started spitting out pictures from a police report, of a bloody murder victim sprawled on the ground in front of a large mirror in an ornate frame. On the mirror were a bloody handprint and the letters T-R-E.

"Looks like the same handprint." Sam said, referring to the handprints on the back of the two mirrors we'd examined earlier.

It was decided that the boys would go to Fort Wayne, Indiana in the morning to interview the detective who had worked on the case, and I would stay at the motel, digging up anything I could on Mary Worthington, mirrors, Bloody Mary and how to kill her.

Hacking the police records had given us the facts of the case; it was unsolved, Mary Worthington had lived alone and had been found murdered in her apartment with her eyes cut out. The boys would find out anything more that the police knew, perhaps anything too weird to put into the report, or even just where she was buried so that we could salt and burn her bones. Though with her moving from Fort Wayne over to Toledo, I was inclined to think that her spirit was attached to an object, moving the object would account for the new presence of the ghost.

The mirror was the most likely suspect by my estimation; according to Jewish superstition all the mirrors in a house should be covered for seven days after a person dies to avoid trapping their spirit within. Some cultures would bury people with mirrors in the hope of trapping the spirit and preventing it from wandering. This was also the origin of the old-wives-tale that breaking a mirror would bring seven years bad luck; the Romans believed that breaking a mirror while it held a reflection of your soul would damage the soul for the seven years until they believed that life was renewed.

Many legends say that mirrors reflect the soul, and can therefore be used to identify soulless creatures such as vampires, as they have no soul to reflect. Viewing a mirror by candlelight is supposed to allow ghosts and spirits to be seen, but also allows them to see you, which is less than ideal, because then they can haunt you.

Mirrors are also believed in many cultures to be portals; certainly they are traditionally used for scrying, for seeing things of a different time or place.

Around mid-afternoon I got a call from the boys, they'd tracked the mirror to a store in Toledo called Estate Antiques. I gave the boys what I'd discovered while they'd been away then we hung up. The guys were on their way back and would get into town that night, we'd go and deal with the mirror then, but in the meantime I would go and recce the store, while it was open, and check that they hadn't sold the mirror.

It was a corner store a little way away from the main hustle and bustle of the high street, a modest front concealed an Aladdin's cave, as was often the way with antique stores, it went back further than you'd guess from the outside and was full of a disorganised assortment of items. This store seemed to specialise in mirrors though, it was simply full of them. I approached the small Asian man behind the till.

"Excuse me? I was wondering if you could help me."

He came forward, all smiles and eagerness.

"I'm looking for a mirror as a gift for my mother; I was hoping to get something with a large ornate frame?"

He showed me around the store pointing out everything he had, I hummed and hawed over a few of them, playing at being undecided, and had to work very hard at concealing my glee when I recognised the Worthington mirror towards the back of the store. Eventually I told the man that I would think about it and thanked him for his time. I browsed a few more items on my way out of the store, as an excuse to examine the alarm system, then left.

I picked up some groceries on the way back to the motel thinking that I'd make pasta with vegetables and cheese sauce ready when the boys got back. When I got back to the room, however, I found Charlie sat on the bed, her knees drawn up and her eyes screwed tightly shut. She told me in a shaky voice that Donna had said it, and that now she was seeing the reflection of a woman with straggly dark hair stood behind her in reflective surfaces, getting closer every time Charlie saw her. I quickly covered all reflective surfaces, shutting the curtains and taking the pictures off the walls, laying them face down on the bed.

Once everything was covered I encouraged Charlie to open her eyes. "Now listen. You're gonna stay right here on this bed, and you're not gonna look at glass, or anything else that has a reflection, okay? And as long as you do that, she cannot get you."

"But I can't keep that up forever. I'm gonna die, aren't I?"

"No, Charlie. No. Not anytime soon."

She helped me to cook dinner, the task and the chatter apparently helping to take her mind off the fact that she was being hunted by a ghost. The kitchen knife was almost shiny enough to reflect things, so I told Charlie to shut her eyes while I chopped the vegetables, but the old pots and pans that I used were so blackened that they weren't at all dangerous to her, though I did make sure that we used paper plates and plastic cutlery, just in case.

Eventually the boys got back, and by that time Charlie was almost chipper. We ate while we waited for it to get dark and I told the boys what I'd learnt. "The mirror's there, but they have a silent alarm. Shouldn't be too tricky to disable, and there are no security cameras either in the store or covering the entrance."

After dinner, Dean got down to business, "All right, Charlie. We need to know what happened."

"We were in the bathroom. Donna said it."

"That's not what we're talking about. Something happened, didn't it? In your life...a secret...where someone got hurt. Can you tell us about it?"

Charlie's good mood nose-dived and she stared down at her lap, tears starting to gather in her eyes. "I had this boyfriend. I loved him. But he kind of scared me too, you know? And one night, at his house, we got in this fight. Then I broke up with him, and he got upset, and he said he needed me and he loved me, and he said "Charlie, if you walk out that door right now, I'm gonna kill myself." And you know what I said? I said "Go ahead." And I left. How could I say that? How could I leave him like that? I just...I didn't believe him, you know? I should have." She buried her face in her hands.

We left Charlie in the motel room, with some borrowed night clothes, assurances that it'd be over by the time she woke up and the advice to use the bathroom with her eyes shut. It was raining as we drove into town, all the better for not being seen breaking into an antiques store, and I filled the boys in on my research into mirrors as we drove.

When I'd finished there was silence for a minute, until Dean broke it, "You know, her boyfriend killing himself, that's not really Charlie's fault."

"You know as well as I do spirits don't exactly see shades of grey, Dean. Charlie had a secret, someone died, that's good enough for Mary."

"I guess."

"You know," said Sam, speaking for the first time, "I've been thinking. It might not be enough to just smash that mirror."

"Why, what do you mean?"

"Well, Mary's hard to pin down, right? I mean she moves around from mirror to mirror so who's to say that she's not just gonna keep hiding in them forever? So maybe we should try to pin her down, you know, summon her to her mirror and then smash it." It was a sensible suggestion, and my findings about mirrors being portals had made me wonder the same thing, but I wondered if that would work in a shop so full of mirrors.

"Well, how do you know that's going to work?" asked Dean.

"I don't, not for sure."

"Well, who's gonna summon her?" I asked.

"I will." Sam's voice was quiet, "She'll come after me."

"You know what, that's it." Dean exclaimed, pulling the car over to the side of the road. "This is about Jessica, isn't it?" Sam stared straight ahead, "You think that's your dirty little secret that you killed her somehow? Sam, this has got to stop, man. I mean, the nightmares and calling her name out in the middle of the night—it's gonna kill you. Now listen to me—It wasn't your fault. If you wanna blame something, then blame the thing that killed her. Or hell, why don't you take a swing at me? I mean I'm the one that dragged you away from her in the first place."

"I don't blame you."

"Well you shouldn't blame yourself, because there's nothing you could've done."

"I could've warned her."

"About what? You didn't know what was gonna happen! And besides, all of this isn't a secret, I mean, we know all about it. It's not gonna work with Mary anyway." Reasoned Dean.

"No, you don't."

"Don't what?"

"You don't know all about it. I haven't told you everything."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well it wouldn't really be a secret if I told you, would it?" Sassy, Sammy.

"No." announced Dean, "I don't like it. It's not gonna happen, forget it."

"Dean, that girl back there is going to die unless we do something about it. And you know what? Who knows how many more people are gonna die after that? Now we're doing this. You've got to let me do this."

Dean shook his head and pulled the car back out onto the road, driving the rest of the way to the store and parking around the block. We stopped at the corner and I disconnected the phone line from the store, preventing the silent alarm from alerting the police to a break in, before continuing to the front door, where I picked the lock in a matter of seconds and led my brothers into the shop.

I went straight to the mirror I'd identified earlier that morning. Dean pulled out a picture from the Worthington case file and compared it to the mirror.

"That's it." He sighed and turned to Sam, "You sure about this?"

Sam stood in front of the mirror, crowbar in his hands, "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary." He hefted the crowbar, bring it up to shoulder height, "Bloody Mary."

For a long, tense moment, nothing happened. Then a light shone through the shop behind us.

"I'll go check that out. Stay here, be careful" Dean told us, "Smash anything that moves." He moved stealthily towards the storefront, then laid his crowbar down and straightened up, before strolling out of the store.

I turned back to the mirror as Sam turned to glance in a different mirror and I gasped; there she was! She vanished as Sam turned back to face her mirror, then movement in another mirror drew our attention and Sam struck. Glass rained down and Sam struck again, a different mirror reduced to shards of broken glass.

"Come on. Come into this one." He murmured, staring fixedly at the Worthington mirror.

We watched as the reflection of Sam looked up, then Sammy gasped, blood trickling from his eye, and the crowbar fell to the floor with a clatter.

"Sam!" I reached for my brother, gripping his arm to keep him upright and touching his face with my other hand, pulling as much pain from him as I could.

"It's your fault. You killed her. You killed Jessica." It was Sam's voice, but it wasn't. The anger and malice something I never would have imagined in my sweet brother's tone. I stared at the mirror in mute horror as Sam sagged in my hold. "You never told her the truth—who you really were. But it's more than that, isn't it? Those nightmares you've been having of Jessica dying, screaming, burning—You had them for days before she died. Didn't you!? You were so desperate to ignore them, to believe they were just dreams. How could you ignore them like that? How could you leave her alone to die!? You dreamt it would happen!"

The mirror smashed, broking glass raining down over us and breaking the spell I seemed to be under and I looked in surprise at Dean, who moved passed me to reach for Sam's shoulder.

"Sam, Sammy!"

"It's Sam." He was panting, but smiling slightly as I continued to pull the throbbing from his skull and the pain from his eyes.

Dean looked him over in concern; rubbing a thumb over the blood, streaked like tear tracks down Sam's face. "God, are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah." Sam's grin was a little dopey, and given the amount of pain I was getting from his head, he was probably concussed.

"Come on, come on." Dean pulled Sam up, pulling an arm over his shoulder, and one on each side we started to lead Sam away from the shattered mirror.

The sound of glass shifting made us turn back, and I could only stare in horror as Mary Worthington pulled herself out of the mirror like Samara from The Ring. She crawled from the mirror and rose to stand in front of it.

The pain!

Pounding in my head, focusing at the back of my eyes, pressure mounting and mounting until I was sure my head would explode! There was pressure in my chest too, making each panicked beat of my heart laborious, and stopping me from taking a breath. I could 'smell' my brothers going through the same thing as the three of us collapsed to the ground as Mary took a few staggering steps towards us. The throbbing in my skull raised in tempo as my heartbeat raced, reaching maybe 90 bpm. I screwed my eyes shut against the pain, feeling like something had stabbed at them, and rolled over, reaching for Sam's arm, desperately trying to draw air into my lungs.

Suddenly, it eased. The pressure decreasing with every beat of my heart, I opened my eyes, blinking the red away from my vision.

"You killed them! All those people! You killed them!" The words were spoken angrily, in a hoarse voice and as if by many voices at once. The sound was coming from the mirror Dean was holding, angled so as to show Mary her own reflection.

The ghost in front of us was choking, red tears trickled down her face as she gasped for breath, then she seemed to melt, dissolving into tiny glass shards which scattered over the floor. Dean tossed the mirror he held into the middle of the broken glass and it reduced to the same, the frame sticking up from the floor like the bones of Smaug from the waters of the Long Lake after the Battle of Esgaroth.

Sam and Dean sat up, surveying the mess we'd made, while I lay on the ground, gasping for breath, my heart rate still more than twice what it should have been.

"Hey, Ali?" Dean sounded slightly out of breath, I groaned in response. "This has got to be like...what? 600 years of bad luck?"

Sam and I looked at him, chuckling weakly. Then my brothers helped me up and supported me back to the car, depositing me on the back seat and climbing into the front.

"You gonna be okay?" Sam asked, worried. I waved my hand weakly. I can take the physical punishment and deal with pain as well as the next girl, human or otherwise, but my prangeni blood meant that my recovery was much slower than a human's, and having a resting heartrate of 32bmp meant that going to hospital wasn't an option for me. It was yet another reason why my family tried to keep me off the front lines.

"That was the police out front, by the way," Dean stated as he started the engine. "I thought you'd disabled the alarm, Alison?"

I shrugged, though he wouldn't see me, "Maybe when the alarm stopped transmitting they decided to swing by and check that it was just a fault, or maybe we were seen entering. Whatever it was, the alarm didn't call them without a phone line to call on."

"Or maybe you're losing your touch." His voice was teasing, he wasn't really mad at me.

"Next time," I replied, "you can do the break in."

* * *

The next morning we'd woken Charlie and given her the good news. She and I rode in the back of the car as we pulled up to the house she'd given us directions for.

"So, this is really over?"

"Yeah, it's over." Dean reassured in a quiet voice. My head was still pounding, where I rested it against the cool of the glass of the window, sunglasses on against the brilliance of the autumn morning.

"Thank you." She shook Dean's proffered hand and got out of the car

"Charlie?" Sam called after her and she turned back, "Your boyfriend's death...you really should try to forgive yourself. No matter what you did, you probably couldn't have stopped it. Sometimes bad things just happen."

Charlie smiled faintly, and then turned around to go into the house.

Dean smacked Sam gently on the shoulder, drawing his attention, "That's good advice."

With a roar from Baby's engine we pulled away and it wasn't until we were driving through the town centre that Dean spoke again. "Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Now that this is all over, I want you to tell me what that secret is."

"Look...you're my brother and I'd die for you, but there are some things I need to keep to myself." I lifted my head from where it rested against the cool glass and frowned at Sam, deciding to keep what I'd heard from the mirror to myself for now. I'd talk to Sam when my head wasn't aching I decided, and settled down to try to sleep through the pain, hoping it would be gone by the time I woke.

A burst ofgrief from Sam, and the soothing rumble of the engine as we rounded a corner and left town helped to lull me to sleep.


	7. Skin

Lynyrd Skynyrd, Poison Whiskey was playing on the radio as we rolled to a stop at a gas station.

"Alright, I figure we'd hit Tucumcari by lunch, then head south, hit Bisbee by midnight." Dean glanced at Sam, who was looking at something in his hand and apparently ignoring Dean. "Sam wears women's underwear."

"I've been listenin'," he didn't even look up from the device in his hand, tapping at the screen with the stylus, "I'm just busy."

"Busy doin' what?" Dean asked, getting out of the car and moving around to fill the tank.

"Reading e-mails." Sam called after him.

"E-mails from who?"

"From my friends at Stanford."

"You're kidding. You still keep in touch with your college buddies?" The incredulity in Dean's voice was undisguised, and in part I had to agree with him, it was difficult to keep friends in this life; too many unanswerable questions. It was better to just drift out of contact with people you used to know, a letter or two, the odd text these days, until one day you're just a story they tell about an weird kid they went to school with who used to carry a hip flask of holy water in their backpack and a silver knife hidden in their sock.

"Why not?" Sam asked, as if he didn't know this life as well as we did.

"Well, what exactly do you tell 'em?" Dean replied, "You know, about where you've been, what you've been doin'?"

"I tell 'em I'm on a road trip with my siblings. I tell 'em I needed some time off after Jess."

"Oh, so you lie to 'em." Dean leant against the back door, talking to Sam through the open car window.

"No. I just don't tell 'em…everything."

"Yeah, Sammy, that's called lying." I told him, trying to inject the slightest note of 'I'm your big sister and it's my job to raise you to know right from wrong, how to be good and how to get away with being bad' into my voice.

"I mean, hey, man, I get it, tellin' the truth is far worse."

"So, what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life?" Dean shrugged and I just raised my eyebrows slightly, Sam looked back and forth between us, "You're serious?"

"Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can't get close to people, period."

"You already know that, Sam".

"You're kind of anti-social, you know that?" Sam commented, turning back to his emails.

"Yeah, whatever." Dean mumbled, as I stepped out the far side of the car to stretch my legs a little.

"God…" Sam's voice was quiet, but Dean and I were both instantly alert, instinctively scanning the parking lot quickly before bending to lean our elbows on the tops of the car doors, mirrored on either side of the car, to see what was wrong with Sammy.

"What?"

Sam shifted slightly, tilting the PalmPilot so Dean could see the screen, "In this e-mail from this girl, Rebecca Warren, one of those friends of mine."

"Is she hot?" I shot Dean a scathing look, but Sam ignored him, continuing on.

"I went to school with her, and her brother, Zack. She says Zack's been charged with murder. He's been arrested for killing his girlfriend. Rebecca says he didn't do it, but it sounds like the cops have a pretty good case."

"Dude, what kind of people are you hangin' out with?"

"No, man, I know Zack. He's no killer."

"Well, maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you."

Sam didn't deign to respond to Dean's jibe, "They're in St. Louis. We're goin'."

Dean chuckled slightly, shaking his head, "Look, sorry 'bout your buddy, okay? But this does not sound like our kind of problem."

"It is our problem." Sam insisted, "They're my friends."

"St. Louis is four hundred miles behind us, Sam." The tone in his voice told me that Dean already knew he'd lost this argument, and sure enough Sam turned to look at him and Dean immediately looked pleadingly at me, something he'd always done when Sam pulled out the puppy eyes. I don't know why he bothered, I wasn't anymore immune to that face than Dean was.

* * *

Rebecca Warren lived in a large and beautiful house in the suburbs, it had taken a whole day of driving and we'd stopped in a motel the night before, once it became clear to Sam -who'd wanted to just keep driving- that we'd have arrived at a terribly unsociable hour if we'd stuck with his plan. So now it was early afternoon and the sun was shining brightly as we pulled up to her front door and got out of the car, Sam going to ring the bell.

It was answered by a pretty blond girl in a green wrap, somewhat taller than me, still miles shorter than the boys. She smiled happily at Sam, "Oh my God, Sam!"

"Well, if it isn't little Becky." Sam gave a grin in response.

"You know what you can do with that 'little Becky' crap." She stepped forward, arms raised, and hugged Sam in a way that said she really needed a hug and a friendly face. I was getting a lot of 'too much' off her, not an overly satisfying type of pain, a little too watery to be tasty.

"I got your e-mail."

"I didn't think that you would come here."

Dean stepped forward, hand extended. "Dean. Older brother."

"Hi."

"Alison, little sister!" I waved at her, bouncing on my toes to be seen from where I stood behind my much taller brothers.

"We're here to help; whatever we can do." Sam told her and she lead us into the house. We chatted as she lead us through to the kitchen, about how she came to be at her parent's house when Zach was arrested, that she would stay until her brother was free and that her parents were on their way back from Paris.

She offered beers as we entered the kitchen and Dean smiled appreciatively, "Hey—"

"No, thanks." Sam cut him off with a 'behave yourself' look. "So, tell us what happened."

Rebecca glanced down, her smile falling before she started to explain, her voice wobbling as she went on. "Well, um, Zack came home, and he found Emily tied to a chair. And she was beaten up and bloody, and she wasn't breathing. So, he called 911, and the police—they showed up, and they arrested him. But, the thing is, the only way that Zack could've killed Emily is if he was in two places at the same time. The police—they have a video. It's from the security tape from across the street. And it shows Zack coming home at 10:30. Now, Emily was killed just after that, but I swear, he was here with me, having a few beers until at least after midnight."

"You know, maybe we could see the crime scene. Zack's house."

"We could." Dean's voice seemed to question Sam's announcement, trying to tell Sam to stay out of it, Sam ignored the warning and went on.

"Why? I mean, what could you do?" Rebecca asked

"Well, me, not much. But Dean's a cop."

Dean laughed in defeat, seems we were doing this. "Detective, actually."

"Really? Where?"

"Bisbee, Arizona. But I'm off-duty now." Three subtle digs at Sam in four sentences, Dean was a real pro at telling people exactly what he thought of them.

"You guys, it's so nice to offer, but I just—I don't know."

"Bec, look, I know Zack didn't do this. Now, we have to find a way to prove that he's innocent."

She chewed her lip for a moment, before coming to a decision, "Okay. I'm gonna go get the keys."

Dean gave a low whistle as she walked away down the hall and turned to face Sam. "Oh, yeah, man, you're a real straight shooter with your friends."

"Look, Zack and Becky need our help."

"I just don't think this is our kind of problem."

"Two places at once? We've looked into less."

"So it's some kind of double; a shapeshifter or a projection of some kind, we catch it, gank it, stop it killing any more people and framing their loved ones, how does that help Zack, Sam? To help your friend we'd need solid proof of his alibi, not a ganked monster, the police'd never believe that." Sam only had time to frown at me in response before Rebecca returned with the keys and we all loaded into the Impala for the trip to Zack's house.

* * *

The car pulled up to the curb across the street from the house wrapped in crime scene tape and the four of us got out. Rebecca turned to Dean, "You're sure this is okay?"

"Yeah. I am an officer of the law." Another sharp glance in Sam's direction and we crossed the street to the house. Rebecca handed over the keys and Dean opened the door, ducking under the tape and entering the house, followed by Sam.

"Bec, you wanna wait outside?" Sam turned back to where Rebecca and I still stood on the porch.

"No. I wanna help." She ducked under the tape, arms crossed around her body, fingers anxiously toying with her necklace and waves of horror pouring from her as she got a good view of the blood splattered walls and floor.

I made to follow her, but Sam raised a finger to stop me, "You wait outside, kiddo."

"What? But I'm nearly fifteen, Sam! I'm not a kid!" The protest in my voice was mostly for show, the echoes of pain and the 'Deathcry'- the last burst of pain before the soul left the body for the next world, wouldn't tell us anything here that we didn't already know, the blood coating nearly every surface told the story well enough. And eathcries were never pleasant, even just the echo could leave me feeling nauseous for hours after.

Sam frowned at me until I gave a huff and took a seat on the porch, and then he turned to Rebecca, speaking gently now, "Tell us what else the police said."

"Well, there's no sign of a break-in. They say that Emily let her attacker in. The lawyers—they're already talking about plea bargain." Her voice was quiet and shaky with tears. "Oh, God…"

"Look, Bec, if Zack didn't do this, it means someone else did. Any idea who?"

There was a pause, I was facing the other way on the steps, still false-pouting while I eavesdropped, "Um, there was something, about a week before. Somebody broke in here and stole some clothes—Zack's clothes. The police—they don't think it's anything. I mean, we're not that far from downtown. Sometimes people get robbed."

The neighbour's dog was barking at me, I scowled at it; damn thing was making it difficult to hear what was going on in the house behind me. I just caught Dean's soft footsteps in the doorway behind me, and then Rebecca's somewhat louder, unguarded steps joined him. "You know, that used to be the sweetest dog."

"What happened?"

"He just changed."

"Do you remember when he changed?"

"I guess around the time of the murder."

Dean walked away and I turned to up at Rebecca over my shoulder. "How long ago was that?"

"'bout a week."

"He's been like this ever since?"

She nodded and we both turned to regard the dog, still barking at us from the other side of the railing.

Inside I could hear Sam and Dean discussing the dog's behaviour and its possible link to the case, which Dean was only verbally denying was a case at this point.

Rebecca walked over to join them and Dean asked about being able to get a copy of the security footage. She confessed to having already stolen it off the lawyer's desk and we left, locking the house behind us to go back to Rebecca's house and see if the tape held any clues.

* * *

The security tape showed feeds from four cameras simultaneously on the screen, each labelled with the camera name and a timestamp.

"Here he comes." Rebecca said gesturing at the screen, sure enough, camera 4 and the bottom right showed Zack crossing the street.

"22:04, that's just after ten. You said time of death was about 10:30." Dean turned to Rebecca from where he sat on the arm of the sofa beside her.

She nodded in response, "Our lawyers hired some kind of video expert. He says the tape's authentic. It wasn't tampered with."

Camera 1 must have been on the other side of the road because Zack's face suddenly flashed across the screen. I frowned; it wasn't moving very fast, why did I get the impression of a flash? Was there some light source on the video?

Sam had apparently noticed the same thing I had, "Hey, Bec, can we take those beers now?"

She agreed, getting up to go and fetch them from the kitchen, when Sam called her back asking for sandwiches too, just to buy us more time to examine the footage without her, I reckon.

"What do you think this is, Hooters?" She asked as she left.

"I wish." Dean laughed quietly, getting up to join Sam where he stood examining the screen. "What is it?"

"Check this out." Sam rewound the tape, and then played it at half speed, pausing when Zack was facing the camera. The flash I'd noticed before was explained; Zack's eye's shone silver.

"Well, maybe it's just a camera flare." Dean proposed.

"That's not like any camera flare I've ever seen. You know, a lot of cultures believe that a photograph can catch a glimpse of the soul, much like a mirror." I commented, walking closer to the TV, not that the resolution was high enough that doing so helped me to see the picture any clearer.

"Remember that dog that was freakin' out?" Sam asked, "Maybe he saw this thing. Maybe this is some kind of dark double of Zack's, something that looks like him but isn't him."

"Like a Doppelganger." Dean added.

"Yeah. It'd sure explain how he was two places at once."

"Not exactly a doppelganger. Doppelganger's are visible only to the person they are the double of, they're a psychopomp, a death omen, though they can also be seen by cats and dogs." I supplied from my encyclopedic knowledge of all things a hunter's PA and researcher could possibly need to know.

"Whose death?" Sam questioned. "It's possible that Emily couldn't see her attacker, only the dog and the camera could."

There was silence while we considered this, until Rebecca returned with the beers and a plate of sandwiches, and all talk of the supernatural ended for the evening.

* * *

"Alright, so what are we doin' here at 5:30 in the morning?" Dean grumped as he got out of the car behind Zack's house and took the lid off his coffee, blowing on the hot liquid. I had to agree with him, 0530 was far too early to be investigating anything.

"I realized something." Sam replied, "The videotape shows the killer goin' in, but not comin' out."

"So, he came out the back door?" Dean leant against the front of the car, and I leant against his shoulder, still not really awake yet.

"Right. So, there should be a trail to follow. A trail the police would never pursue." Sam was way too happy and awake; I can't deal with this yet.

"'Cause they think the killer never left. And they caught your friend Zack inside." Dean was clearly more awake than me. "I still don't know what we're doin' here at 5:30 in the morning."

Sam started searching around the back of Zack's house, particularly any likely exit routes. "Blood." He announced, pointing at a telegraph pole. "Somebody came this way."

"Yeah, but the trail ends. I don't see anything over here." Dean told him, looking around. "Ali?"

"Dunno," I mumbled, still trying to use Dean's shoulder as a pillow despite his movements, "Still sleepy…"

An ambulance drove past us and Sam and Dean exchanged a look. "You stay here, wake up and try to find what you can, we'll check that out." Dean told me, gesturing after the ambulance and then pulling away from where I was leaning against him, I whined a little in protest, but yawned and did my best to wake up a little.

Under the right circumstances I'm a highly skilled tracker; if I have a pain trail to follow, or whatever I'm following is still close enough that I can hear it. But something like this, where the trail was a week old and the creature hadn't been in pain when it passed, none of my superhuman senses were of any use, and I had to rely on sight and smell, just like a human would, to find this trail.

Under these circumstances, I'm merely a skilled tracker. I flexed my spine allowing myself to drop backwards until I was lying on the warm bonnet of the car. I stretched my hands up above my head and then relaxed, opening my eyes to gaze up at the sky. I sighed and pulled myself upright, pushing away from the car and heading over to the building. I took a slight 'sniff' at the blood, to confirm that the person who left the smear of it, in the shape of a hand, had not been feeling any pain; there was nothing. I glanced towards the building, idly wondering where they'd exited and what kind of speed they might have been doing when they reached out and touched the pole.

The print was of the right hand, the palm and four fingers pressed against the pole, then swiped to the left and down, it was approximately at a man's shoulder height from the ground. It must have been made by someone moving away from where Dean and I had been standing, which explained why Dean hadn't seen anything more.

To have a hand out at shoulder height like that, the person must have reached out to catch themselves; they'd stumbled for some reason, probably while moving at high speed. I glanced up, they must have jumped down -I decided- caught themselves against the telegraph pole and headed down the alley beside the house. I wandered slowly after them, casting my eyes about for more blood; nothing else would be left to follow after all this time. There were no boot prints, only in cartoons is it ever that easy, but there was an occasional drop of blood, dried red on the paving stones. They became infrequent, and then stopped, before reaching the end of the alley, where it came out onto the main road at the front of the building.

I spent some time searching the end of the alley and the junction with the street, but couldn't find anything more.

Deciding not to waste any more time, I headed off after the boys, using my senses to follow the trail of Sam's pain, still mourning for Jess. I found them down the side of an apartment block which had a gathering of onlookers, police and other officials out the front.

"Hey." Dean called to Sam, attracting his attention from where he hunting for a trail, "Remember when I said this wasn't our kind of problem?"

"Yeah." Sam and I answered in unison as I joined them and Dean gave us a dirty look before continuing.

"Definitely our kind of problem."

"What'd you find out?"

"Well, I just talked to the patrolman who was first on the scene, heard this guy, Alex's story. Apparently the dude was driving home from a business trip when his wife was attacked."

"So, he was in two places at once."

"Exactly. Then he sees himself in the house, police think he's a nutjob."

"Two dark doubles attacking loved ones in exactly the same way." Sam walked around Dean, towards the people at the front of the building before turning back to face us.

"Could be the same thing doin' it, too." Dean commented.

"Shapeshifter?" Sam asked, Dean shrugged in response, "Something that can make itself look like anyone?"

"Every culture in the world has a shapeshifter lore. You know, legends of creatures who can transform themselves into animals or other men." Dean explained his thinking.

"The lore goes back as far as the Neolithic era, therianthropy, lycanthropy, cynanthropy, ailuranthropy, nearly all examples are humans transforming into animals, or spirits transforming into humans. There's very few examples of creatures mimicking specific humans." I provided more information on the topic.

"We've got two attacks within blocks of each other. I'm guessin' we've got a shapeshifter prowlin' the neighborhood." Dean concluded.

"Let me ask you this—in all this shapeshifter lore, can any of them fly?" Sam asked, mainly looking at me for an answer, but glancing at Dean too.

"Yeah, anything that can turn into a bird, plus a few others." My brother's just looked at me.

"How do you remember all this crap?"

I chose to ignore Dean's question. "Why do you ask, Sam?"

"I picked up a trail here. Someone ran out the back of this building and headed off this way." Sam walked back towards the building where he'd presumably found the trail.

"Just like your friend's house. What did you find there anyway?" Dean asked, turning to me.

"Someone coated in someone else's blood jumped down, caught themselves with a hand against the pole and headed down the alley, away from where we parked the car, the trail disappeared before it got to the road."

"And here, just like at Zack's house, the trail suddenly ends. I mean, whatever it is just disappeared." Sam finished, clearly frustrated.

"Well, there's another way to go" said Dean, "down."

We all three of us looked down; there was a manhole cover just behind Sam.

Dean started to lift the cover, while I dug through my satchel for a torch. Dean headed down into the darkness below and I followed, grateful that I'd worn leggings that day, as I hitched my skirt up to allow easier movement. Sam came last, replacing the cover as I handed a torch to Dean and pulled a second from my bag, the batteries were starting to die and the light beam was weak, but I have pretty good night vision, so it wouldn't bother me as much as it would the boys. This section was pretty well lit though, various drains letting daylight in, and the service lights were on too.

"I bet this runs right by Zack's house, too. The shapeshifter could be using the sewer system to get around." Sam had joined us at the bottom of the ladder and was staring along the sewer in the direction of his friend's house.

"I think you're right." Dean called from around the bend behind us. "Look at this."

We joined him and crouched down to examine the putrid pile of gloop. It was mainly composed of clear mucus, but there was blood, a few teeth and dark strands of hair suspended in it, as well as sheets of something pale, it might have been human skin.

"Is this from his victims?" Sam asked, as I stood, backing off a little, wrinkling my nose.

Dean used a pocket knife to pick up some of the mucus and hair, "You know, I just had a sick thought. When the shapeshifter changes shape—maybe it sheds."

"That is sick." Sam confirmed.

Dean flicked the knife, returning the gross gloop to the pile and we stood, resolving to return to the car for weapons before searching the sewers for the shapeshifter.

We reached the car and Dean opened the boot, lifting the false bottom and propping it open with a shot gun. "Well, one thing I learned from Dad is that no matter what kind of shapeshifter it is, there's one sure way to kill it."

He glanced up at Sam, waiting for an answer, while loading silver 9mm rounds into a mag. "Silver bullet to the heart." Sam supplied.

"That's right." Dean grinned.

A ring tone sounded from Sam's pocket and he fished his phone out, answering it and turning away as I picked up an empty mag and joined Dean in loading it. "This is Sam."

"Where are you?" I could hear Rebecca's angry voice clearly from the small speaker.

"We're near Zack's, we're just checkin' some things out."

"Well, look, Sam, just stop, 'cause I really don't need your help anymore."

"What are you talkin' about?"

"I told the lawyers that we went to the crime scene."

"Busted" I muttered quietly to Dean.

Sam scoffed slightly, "Why would you do that?"

"Well, I told them that we were with a police officer. And they checked it out, and they told me that there is no Detective Dean Winchester."

"Bec—"

"No, I don't understand why you would lie to me about something like that." We lie to everyone, Rebecca.

"We're tryin' to help."

"Oh, trying to help? Do you realize that that was a sealed crime scene? This could have just ruined Zack's case."

"Bec, I'm sorry, but—"

"No, goodbye, Sam." The dial tone sounded and Sam lowered the phone as Dean and I finished loading three handguns and closed the boot.

"I hate to say it, but that's exactly what I'm talkin' about." Dean said as we joined Sam where he was leaning against the side of Baby. "You lie to your friends because if they knew the real you, they'd be freaked. It's just—it'd be easier if—"

"If I was like you."

"Hey, man, like it or not, we are not like other people." Dean grinned and I smirked, leaning against my big brother with my arms crossed. "But I'll tell you one thing. This whole gig—it ain't without perks."

He held out the third handgun, pistol grip first. Sam looked at it, glancing up to us with a grin, before taking it and straightening to slip it into the back of his waistband.

* * *

We spent the rest of the afternoon searching the sewers. You become accustomed to the smell after a while, which is kind of gross to think about. Particularly as I know from experience that the smell of it sinks into your clothes and skin and hair, and can take days to wash away, even if you don't touch anything you're still going to need a shower or several when you get out of there.

It was hours before Dean spoke, "I think we're close to its lair."

"Why do you say that?" Sam asked.

"Because there's another puke-inducing pile next to your face." Sam and I both looked at where Dean's torch was shining on the pipe next to Sam's head.

Sam jumped back, disgusted. "Uh, God!" He wiped at his shoulder, checking that he hadn't touched it, while I cast my torch beam around, finding a pile of clothes against the wall.

"Looks like it's lived here for a while." Dean commented.

"Who knows how many murders he's gotten away with?" Sam murmured.

There was a slight noise in the tunnel behind us and I snapped my head and torch around. There was an Asian man behind Dean with silver eyes. The shapeshifter!

I shrieked and my brothers turned; all three of us raising firearms. The shapeshifter lashed out, punching Dean in the face and he fell against the wall. Sam and I shot after it, one of us hitting our mark. And the creature fell into the water at the edge of the walkway. Sam pursued it while I reached for Dean, drawing the pain from his face and arm, reassuring myself that he wasn't seriously hurt.

"I'm fine!" He pushed me away, "Did we get the son of a bitch?"

"Yeah, we got him. Nice shooting, Ali."

"Is it dead?" I asked.

"You got it through the heart." Sam replied, pointing to the small hole in the back of the creature's shirt as we joined him.

"A pity." Sam stared at me incredulously for that comment, "It would have been nice to be able to question it, find out more about it, its abilities and how its kind usually lives."

Dean snorted and slapped me on the back, "Next time, Nerd."

We dragged the thing to a manhole cover that opened into a deserted alleyway, between the three of us we got it up the ladder and out. We left it in the alley, next to the open sewer, and headed back to the motel for some badly needed showers.

A few days later Sam got a call from Rebecca saying that Emily's killer had been found, shot dead in an alley; they'd found his lair underground, found Zack's clothes, stained with Emily's blood. The police were now thinking that the surveillance tape had been tampered with and Zack had been cleared of all charges. Sam was forgiven for lying about Dean being a police man, reminded that his friends back in college missed him and told to stay in touch.

We arrived in Bisbee, Arizona a week later than we'd planned.


	8. Hook Man

"Mornin', Sleepin' Beauty!" Bobby's gruff voice woke me, and I groaned, lifting my head from the pillow and turning to peer blearily at the old hunter standing at the bedroom door. "I'm makin' breakfast. You want any?"

I smile and nod, letting my eyes fall shut and my head drop back onto my pillow. I hadn't slept well; I never do when I have to sleep alone.

Bobby grunted and left, shutting the door. I dragged myself out of bed and stumbled towards the bathroom, wrapping one arm around my sore tummy and rubbing at my eyes.

Ten minutes later I joined Bobby in the kitchen, he was cooking eggs and bacon and the smell was divine. I hummed appreciatively and fetch myself a glass of orange juice before setting the table for two, refiling my hot water bottle and topping up Bobby's coffee. We ate in amicable silence, until Bobby finished his food; sitting back with his coffee and watching me chase the last forkful of eggs around my plate with one hand.

"What you got planned for today?"

"I need to phone the guys, let them know that I've found neither hide nor hair of Dad."

I gave in and used my knife to push the eggs onto the fork, scooping it up into my mouth as Bobby asked the question I didn't really want to think about. "Ya ever think your Daddy maybe don't want to be found?"

I looked down at my empty plate, chewed, swallowed and nodded, before getting up to gather the dirty dishes into the sink and start the water.

"Well, how about you help me strip down that new wreck we got last weekend?"

I smiled down into the soapy water. "Okay, let me finish this, phone the guys and change into my work clothes, I'll come find you in a bit."

The phone rang as I was finishing the dishes and drying my hands, Bobby was already outside so I picked up. "You've reached the Ghostbusters hotline, we ain't afraid of no ghost. How can I help?"

"You can improve your sense of humour for a start." Sam's disgruntled tone greeted me and I grinned.

"Good morning, Sammy! I was just about to call you."

"Did you find him?" His voice was eager and hopeful, I sighed, hating to have to crush his hopes.

"I'm sorry, Sammy. I've hacked every database I could think of. There are no John Does matching Dad's description, his plates haven't been caught in any traffic violations, and none of Bobby's contacts have any news of him. There's just nothing, Sammy."

"Your, uh, half-caf, double vanilla latte." Dean's voice joined in the background; presumably they were calling from a coffee shop somewhere.

"Bite me." Sam's voice was flat, in response to Dean's teasing tone.

"So, anything?" There was a pause while Sam must have responded non-verbally before Dean sighed. "Guys, I'm tellin' ya, I don't think Dad wants to be found." It was uncomfortably close to what Bobby had said. There was a pause, and a rustle of paper, "Check this out. It's a news item out of Planes Courier. Ankeny, Iowa. It's only about a hundred miles from here."

Sam read the paper aloud, "The mutilated body was found near the victim's car, parked on 9 Mile Road."

"Keep reading."

"Authorities are unable to provide a realistic description of the killer. The sole eyewitness, whose name has been withheld, is quoted as saying the attacker was invisible."

"Could be something interesting."

"Or it could be nothing at all. One freaked out witness who didn't see anything? Doesn't mean it's the Invisible Man."

"But what if it is?" Dean argued, "Dad would check it out."

And that was the end of that. The boys were going to Ankeny, Iowa for a hunt, and I would be spending the day pulling working parts out of a mashed up engine.

* * *

Ten minutes later I joined Bobby in the garage, wearing an overlarge boiler suit and with my waist length brown hair tidied away into two buns on either side of my neck. The wreck looked like it had been in a head on collision, the front and driver's side mangled beyond reasonable repair. If it had been Baby, we'd have fixed her up and had her back on the road in a month or two of hard work, but it wasn't Baby, it was some mass-produced Ford truck that no one loved. So we were scraping it.

The interior of the truck was in relatively good condition, so I got to work unbolting the seats and striping them out. This wasn't the only Ford truck Bobby had on his lot, chances were good that we'd be able to cobble together a working car from various different wrecks and sell the resultant Frankenstein's monster as a second-hand. Though the paperwork to get it all licensed was a bit of a headache, I tended to leave that side of things to Bobby.

We'd been at it for maybe half an hour before I heard a phone ringing in the house, I was twisted under the rear seats, trying to persuade a particularly stubborn bolt to move, so I shouted to Bobby to let him know and he left, cursing about how hunters couldn't even give him one day off. I chuckled slightly, listening as Bobby was very short with whichever police officer had good enough intuition to know that the hunter's FBI badge was a fake.

The bolt finally came loose and I was able to take the bench seat out of the back of the truck, I stacked it at the side of the garage for now, Bobby would find a home for it latter; I couldn't work out his system for storing things, from his books to his car parts, it all just looked like chaos to me. Carpets came out next, then undamaged doors and side panels; there was plenty to recover from this wreck, even if the damaged chassis meant that it was a write-off.

Eventually I fished the now cold hot water bottle out of my boiler suit. I scowled at it and headed into the house for a break. It wasn't until I had finished in the bathroom that I realised that Bobby had never returned. I found him at his desk in the living room, nose buried in a book and an empty coffee mug at his elbow. I smiled slightly at the old hunter, and moved into the kitchen without a word, to refill my water bottle. There was some bacon left, but not much else in the fridge. I'd have to do a run into town later, but for now; we were having bacon butties for lunch. I served it up with a fresh mug of coffee for Bobby and a hot chocolate for me, using up the last of the milk.

He looked up as I placed his food on the desk for him, grunting his thanks. He ate one handed, the other hand still paging through the book in front of him. I finished my sandwich and started on the washing up before breaking the silence.

"What are you reading up on?" I asked, collecting his dirty dishes.

"I don't even know." Came the angry mumble in reply. "Richie is looking for something up in Alaska that's been eatin' hearts."

"Not a werewolf?"

"Nah, lunar cycle's wrong."

I thought for a bit, what else eats hearts? There's plenty of things that die if you shoot them in the heart, but eating them… the list's a little shorter.

"Skinwalker?"

"That was my first guess, but Richie doesn't think so."

"He say why?" If this is the same Richie Dean and I met a couple of years ago then I'm not sure I trust his judgment.

"Nope." Bobby looked up from his book, clearly exasperated.

"Wait, Alaska? Isn't there some local lore about mouse like demons that eat hearts? They hunt by movement, and if you can kill them you become a skilled hunter?"

Bobby snorted, "Richie could do with some of that." And fetched a book on Alaskan myths and legends from the second deep row of books on the bookcase behind his desk.

I finished the washing up before returning to the wrecked Ford in the garage. The dashboard was my next target, and with all the wiring in these modern cars it was always a sod of a job.

* * *

The next day, I got a call from Sam. They'd spoken to the witness and the MO sounded like the Hook Man. He and Dean were going to be in the University Library all day by the sound of it, looking up old arrest records, trying to find anyone whose spirit might have started the legend and who might be responsible for a frat boy being suspended over the roof of his car, killed by a "sharp implement".

I offered to look into the legend, to see if I could trace it to its origins, but Sam told me not to bother; they were pretty confident they knew what they were dealing with.

So it was day two of ripping up the old Ford and week two of grumbling at biology. I'd finished gutting the interior of the truck yesterday, so today I would be tackling under the bonnet. Though it was in such poor shape I had a job to even get the bonnet open. Eventually I managed to remove the whole thing, though it had taken a good half hour of cussing and swearing, and more strength than I was used to exerting, more than a human would have been capable of. I was in a foul mood by the time I'd wrangled the bonnet off, the movements and force required further upsetting my tummy. Most of the engine was in pretty poor shape, though I was able to salvage some of the headlamp units, the alternator, battery, water pump and a few of the spark plugs, there wasn't much worth having.

I jumped down into the inspection pit with a lamp in hand to have a look at the exhaust, gear box, drive shaft, and suspension and so on, which was mostly in pretty good nick. It would probably be worth the extra effort of removing the engine to get at the gearbox; those sell for a pretty penny.

I was removing the exhaust when Bobby came out with a sandwich and a hot chocolate for me. I dropped the exhaust away from the car, leaving it lying underneath the truck for now and hopped up to sit on the edge of the pit at the rear of the truck.

"Bobby, you're the best." I gratefully accepted my lunch and tucked in. Bobby wasn't a great cook, but he could make a mean sandwich.

"Good call on the Wi-Lu-Gho-Yuk yesterday." He told me as I sneered with distaste at the greasy black fingerprints I'd gotten on my sandwich.

"The what-now?"

"Demon mice."

Oh, no wonder I hadn't remembered what they were called. I think Alaskan Demon Mice would be much simpler and clearer.

"We clear of hunter duties for a bit?"

"Why? You wantin' help on this thing?"

"Well, taking an engine out really is a two man job, Bobby."

"Yeah, quit battin' yer eyelashes at me, girl. I know you too well to think yer's innocent as ya look." He wandered around to the front of the truck and gave a low whistle. "Dunno what yer tryin' to save here. All looks like scrap to me."

I finished my sandwich and jumped up onto solid ground, bringing my hot chocolate to join Bobby at the front of the wreck.

"The gear box seems to be alright. Though I'd say you're right about the engine."

He grunted and stepped back, eyeing the truck and the stacks of parts I'd already stripped off it. "I got another one of these out on the lot. You get a workin' truck out of it and I'll give ya half the sale price. Should be 'bout $5000."

I rolled my eyes at him and returned to the pit to grab the exhaust out. "Half the profit, not the sale price."

We argued for a while, but when I pointed out that I had Sam and Dean making a dishonest living and very little to spend my money on, whereas he was trying to run a business around being a hunter, he did eventually cave and we settled on a rather lower amount.

By the time we'd come to an agreement, we'd unbolted all the remaining engine mounts and we'd fallen out. I was so used to Bobby's gruff exterior that falling out didn't bother me; I knew he was more grumpy that I'd won our argument than actually cross and he'd forgive me as soon as dinner was on the table. The engine had to be cut out eventually, the twisted metal of the ruined chassis preventing it from being a simple job. The gearbox was in good condition though, so we called it a job well done and headed inside for showers and dinner.

A couple of days later Bobby had most of a working truck in his garage and the twisted skeleton of the wrecked truck had taken its place out on the lot, to rust until the end of time. I was missing a few suspension parts, and I'd need new filters and fluids, but otherwise the truck was pretty much ready to go. Except that for some reason it wouldn't start.

I was head and shoulders into the truck, testing the connections from the battery and all the spark plugs, when Baby's familiar throaty growl pulled up to the front of the house. I grinned, extracting myself from the engine and wiping my hands on a rag as I left the garage to greet my brothers.

Sam had a bandage on his arm. "What happened?" I demanded, holding his arm just above the injury and sucking the pain away for him.

"Hook Man; comes complete with hook." Dean snarked as he carried both his and Sam's bags into the house.

* * *

I slept well that night for the first time in days, curled into Sam's side on the tiny twin bed. Normally he'd have insisted that there wasn't room for me, but with his arm hurting him, suddenly the bed wasn't so small after all.

Not that I'd have ended up alone again anyway. It'd been almost two weeks since my brothers had dropped my off for my biannual visit to Bobby, and the nightmares had been tormenting me. Even is Sam had been unwilling to let me sleep with him, I'd have insisted on sleeping with one of them.

I woke when he did, with a start, in the middle of the night. Dean's snores continued uninterrupted on the other side of the room, and Sam was feeling grief and guilt again; another dream about Jess.

"Are we ever gonna talk about these dreams, Sammy?"

"No." His voice was as quiet as mine had been, but filled with sadness, almost defeat.

"What about what Bloody Mary said?" The accusing voice had stayed in my mind after that hunt, I'm not sure I could ever forget. _"You had them for days before she died!"_

"What are you talking about?"

"You had premonitions? These nightmares started before the fire."

There was silence for a long moment. "We're not talking about that either."

We would have to eventually, but for now, maybe I should just leave it alone. Sam was still hurting, still trying to come to terms with what had happened. He knew now, that I knew; he'd come to me when he was ready, just as he always had.


	9. Bugs

The biker bar was loud, even from out here, the music pouring from inside was loud enough to sing along had I wanted to. Dean was inside, hustling pool. Sam and I were sat on the bonnet of the car, leaning back against the windscreen with a few newspapers. One article in particular had caught our attention, "Local Death a Medical Mystery".

Dean's laughter made me look up; he was coming down the steps of the bar, waving a wad of cash. I grinned at him; there were so many memories in that image. Sammy and me waiting outside, Dean returning triumphant and slightly drunk, Dad's jacket just a little too big on him, but the cash meaning that we'd hold out another week until Dad came home; Dean and I would get to eat that night as well as Sammy. They were fond memories despite the struggles, somehow eveything had seemed simpler back then.

"You know, we could get day jobs once in a while." Sam's voice rang out beside me, making me roll my eyes. Our baby brother always was so law abiding.

"Hunting's our day job. And the pay is crap." Dean reminded him.

"Yeah, but hustling pool? Credit card scams? It's not the most honest thing in the world, Dean."

"Well, let's see honest. Fun and easy." He held out his hands as if to weigh the options, leaning obviously towards the "fun and easy" side, I laughed slightly, Sam was less impressed. "It's no contest. Besides, we're good at it. It's what we were raised to do."

"Yeah, well, how we were raised was jack."

"Well, why don't you go get a day job then, Sammy? Dean hustles pool, I work with Uncle Bobby, what do you do?"

Sam scowled at me but didn't reply.

Dean snorted slightly before changing the subject. "We got a new gig or what?"

"Maybe. Oasis Plains, Oklahoma - not far from here. A gas company employee, Dustin Burwash, supposedly died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob." Sam explained, handing Dean the paper as he and I slid off the bonnet.

"Huh?"

"Human mad cow disease." I explained.

"Mad cow. Wasn't that on Oprah?"

We both turned to look at Dean. "You watch Oprah?"

Dean stumbled over something to say, clearly recognising his mistake and swiftly changed the topic. "So this guy eats a bad burger. Why is it our kind of thing?"

"Mad cow disease causes massive brain degeneration. It takes months, even years, for the damage to appear. But this guy, Dustin? Sounds like his brain disintegrated in about an hour. Maybe less." Sam summarised what it was about the article that had caught our attention.

"Okay, that's weird."

"Yeah. Now, it could be a disease. Or it could be somethin' much nastier."

"All right. Oklahoma." We got in the car, Dean complaining as we went. "Man. Work, work, work. No time to spend my money."

The next morning was overcast and raining as we pulled up outside Oklahoma Gas and Power. We got out of the car, and I took hold of Dean's hand, playing up the small and sad card; I'd braided my hair into pigtails and made sure to wear a knee length skirt, big boots making my feet appear disproportionate to my body, a pink fluffy jumper and I'd exchanged my leather satchel for a school rucksack. It all gave the impression that I was much younger than I am. In this get up I could probably pass for a tall ten year old, 5'1" isn't outrageous for a ten year old, is it? I walked with my head ducked and shoulders curled in, just in case.

We approached a construction worker standing by his truck on the other side of the lot, and Sam called out to him, "Travis Weaver?"

The man turned, "Yeah, that's right."

"Are you the Travis who worked with Uncle Dusty?" Dean questioned.

Travis looked questioningly at the boys, he gave me a gentle smile, "You must be Sophie," I smiled back and buried my face further into Dean's arm. Dustin Burwash had a niece? We hadn't known that. "But Dustin never mentioned any nephews."

"Really? Well, he sure mentioned you. He said you were the greatest."

"Yeah." Sam and I agreed with Dean's statement.

"Oh, he did? Huh." Travis smiled sadly.

"Listen, we wanted to ask you... what exactly happened out there?"

"I'm not sure. He fell in a sinkhole, I went to the truck to get some rope, and, uh... by the time I got back..." Travis trailed off.

"What did you see?" Dean asked.

"Nothin'. Just Dustin."

"No wounds or anything?"

"Well, he was bleeding... from his eyes and his ears, his nose. But that's it."

"So you think it could be this whole mad cow thing?"

"I don't know. That's what the doctors are sayin'."

"But if it was," Sam pressed, "he would've acted strange beforehand, like dementia, loss of motor control. You ever notice anything like that?"

Travis shook his head. "No. No way. But then again, if it wasn't some disease, what the hell was it?"

"That's a good question."

"You know, can you tell us where this happened?"

"Yeah."

* * *

It didn't take us long to get to the scene of Dustin Burwash's death. A tree, gnarled and twisted from growing alone in a windy place, stood at the corner of a house that was in the final stages of construction. Police tape, wrapped around the tree and several metal stakes pushed into the dry earth, surrounded a sinkhole, a couple of feet in diameter, at the foot of the tree.

"Huh. What do you think?" Dean asked as we pulled up and got out of the car.

"I don't know. But if that guy, Travis, was right, it happened pretty damn fast."

"So, what? Some sort of creature chewed on his brain?"

"No, there'd be an entry wound. Sounds like this thing worked from the inside." We ducked under the tape and approached the edge of the hole, using a torch to illuminate its depths. From where I stood behind the boys, I couldn't see much, just a tangle of roots and what might have been the bottom, a few meters down.

"Huh. Looks like there's only room for one." Commented Dean. "You wanna flip a coin?"

"Dean, we have no idea what's down there." Sam pointed out.

Dean grabbed a nearby coil of rope and turned back to tease Sammy. "All right, I'll go if you're scared. You sca- Alison! What the hell are you doing?"

I pulled my head back out of the hole from where I'd been crouched; leaning forwards with my arms braced on the ground at the edge of the hole. "I'm the best choice to go down, and I want to see what I'm heading into."

My brothers stared at me speechlessly until Sam turned to Dean, "Flip the damn coin."

Dean pulled a coin from his pocket, "All right, call it in the air... chicken."

The coin flicked off Dean's thumb, rose, spinning, and then began to fall before Sam snatched it out of the air. "I'm going."

"I said I'd go."

"I'm going."

"All right."

I let them bicker without interruption, and watched as Sam picked up the rope, starting to tie it around his waist. "Don't drop me."

I rolled my eyes at their antics before allowing myself to tumble forwards into the hole, catching myself with my hands against the edges to control my descent. Superior strength, superior night vision, superior sense of hearing, as well as being lighter and therefore easier to haul back out if need be, all made me better suited to this task than either of my brothers.

The roots scratched at my face, catching in my hair as my pigtails fell over my shoulders to dangle in front of my face. For a moment the surrounding earth dampened sounds, the darkness was peaceful and the chill of the air below the earth made me feel like this was… a special place, a steady and constant place, and slightly forbidding; it was calm, and still and didn't like to be interrupted by something as fast paced as a human.

Then my observations were shattered as Sam grabbed my ankles, which were still at ground level. "Ali! What the hell? You can't just dive into holes in the ground! Anything could be down there! And you don't even have a rope; how are we meant to get you out again?"

I glanced back up at my brothers through the tangled net of roots. "Chuck us a rope then." I said softly.

Dean frowned at me, somewhat more used to me taking a more active role in hunting than Sam was, he didn't comment. He tied a loop in the rope and lowered it down. I flexed my ankle against Sam's hand and used the support to allow me to remove a hand from the wall, passing the rope over my head and free arm before replacing my hand on the wall, feeling the grit and slight moisture in the soil at this depth. I pointed my toes, indicating to Sam that I didn't need his support any longer and continued my descent into the darkness.

As my eyes adjusted I was able to confirm that there were no tunnels leading in or out of the sinkhole. There were barely any roots down this low, and the atmosphere of cold dislike didn't change. There was nothing overly aggressive in the feeling, more that something was watching that wanted me gone; I felt unwelcome. I pressed my hands against the walls, looking for looseness in the soil that would suggest that it had recently been disturbed, but there was nothing.

In fact, all I could see that wasn't soil was a few dead beetles. Actually, there were a surprising number of dead beetles, considering that there was nothing else here; no marks in the dirt except for the outline of where Dustin Burwash had lain, and some blood soaked into the dirt from his head injuries and on the other side of the hole, presumably some injury associated with the fall. There were some boot prints, left by whoever got him out, but only one set; all evidence suggested that I was the third person to have come down this hole.

There was pain, and panic in the echo, plus the much milder distress of the person who recovered the body. Everything was exactly as you'd expect for someone who'd died in the fall, except for ten dead beetles.

I removed my feet from where they were braced against the walls of the tunnel and wrapped them around the rope. "Alright, pull me up!" I called, and delicately pinched a beetle between finger and thumb as I rose steadily out of the cold, dark little pit and out into the reassuring daylight and the welcome presence of my brothers.

* * *

"So you found some beetles. In a hole, in the ground. That's shocking, Ali."

Dean was driving, Sam was examining the beetle I'd retrieved, apparently less squeamish about bugs than I am, and I was reclining in the back seat; still a little dizzy from the head rush of being turned the right way up again.

"There were no tunnels, no tracks. No evidence of any other kind of creature down there." I told them, again.

"You know," Sam added, bizarre enthusiasm in his voice, "some beetles do eat meat. Now, it's usually dead meat, but-"

"How many did you find down there?"

"Ten." I answered flatly.

"It'd take a whole lot more than that to eat out some dude's brain." Dean pointed out.

"Well, maybe there were more." Sam defended me.

"Of the many that ate his brain, ten died and remained in the hole for me to find. Unless the dude's brain was poisonous, most of them will have left."

"I don't know, it sounds like a stretch to me." Dean replied, dubiously.

"Well, we need more information on the area, the neighbourhood. Whether something like this has ever happened before." Sam pointed out.

There was a pause as we drove; the neighbourhood was very new; I doubted there'd be much in the way of local ghost stories yet.

"I know a good place to start." Dean announced, nodding out the window to a sign with red balloons tied to it, I wasn't quick enough to read what it said. "I'm kinda hungry for a little barbeque, how 'bout you?" He glanced across at Sam, "What, we can't talk to the locals?"

"And the free food's got nothing' to do with it?"

"Of course not. I'm a professional."

"I'm in it for the food." I announced, Sammy just sighed and shook his head slightly as we pulled over.

"Growing' up in a place like this would freak me out." Dean commented as we strolled down the street towards the house with more balloons out front.

"Why?"

"Well, manicured lawns, "How was your day, honey?" I'd blow my brains out."

"There's nothing wrong with "normal"." Sam protested.

"I'd take our family over normal any day."

"Me too." I added quietly. ""Normal" with its manicured lawns and kids playing in the street was nice, until my mother died and my father started beating me. After that we moved around, always places like this, and no one even knew I existed until Dad saved me." I stood at the bottom of the drive, arms crossed and looked around. "In places like these, everyone is superficial, isolated within their own little house and garden. They're aware of their neighbours, but they don't know their neighbours and they don't care to look. If they look, they might see something out of place, and it would disrupt their perfect little world. The world where no one suffers, where the only thing going bump in the night is the cat flap." In that world, of course that nice man next door isn't beating his daughter and hiding her in a closet.

Dean stepped close to my side, putting his arm across my shoulders and tugging me into a one armed hug.

"Our family might not be "normal", Sam, but it's a thousand times better in so many ways." I pulled away from Dean, and led the way up the driveway to knock on the door. My brothers joining me and Sam taking my hand in a silent apology and comfort as the door opened to reveal a middle aged man with grey hair and a pleasant smile.

"Welcome."

"This the barbeque?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, not the best weather, but... I'm Larry Pike, the developer here. And you are...?"

"Dean. This is Sam and Alison."

Handshakes and smiles were exchanged, before I was excluded from the "grown-up talk".

"So, you two are interested in Oasis Plains? Let me just say - we accept homeowners of any race, religion, colour, or... sexual orientation."

I started giggling quietly as I realised what the developer was implying and Dean hastened to correct the assumption. "We're brothers."

The man seemed slightly embarrassed, probably not helped by my laughter, but I'd really needed the lift after being reminded of my early years.

"Our father is getting on in years, and we're just looking' for a place for him."

"Great, great. Well, seniors are welcome, too. Come on in."

Larry led us through the house to the back garden, where a few tables were set up with food and lots of people were milling about. Most were dressed casually, like us, but scattered about were people all in matching suits, sales representatives presumably.

"You said you were the developer?"

"Eighteen months ago, I was walking this valley with my survey team. There was nothing here but scrub brush and squirrels. And you know what?" I drifted off at this point, I was pretending to be a kid, and no one would be offended by a kid more interested in free food than buying a house.

I milled about, eating miniature burgers and debating how many times I could get away with going up for seconds. Twice worked, but the lady giving out the food did give me a funny look, so I settled for getting some ice cream and returning to my brothers who were near the middle of the garden, arguing about something.

"Well, Dad never treated you like that. You were perfect." Sam was saying as I approached. "He was all over my case. You don't remember?"

"Well, maybe he had to raise his voice, but sometimes, you were out of line." Dean replied.

"Right." Sam scoffed. "Right, like when I said I'd rather play soccer than learn bow hunting."

"Bow hunting's an important skill."

"Not to mention one of the more fun things we had to learn." Dad had started training me about a week after I'd told him I was a prangeni. I was about 25 years old at the time, and delighted that he was teaching me how to protect the boys, instead of throwing me out. The novelty soon wore off, and the responsibility and the shear physical challenge of it all became onerous very quickly.

"Whatever. You're about to drip." Sam pointed at the cone in my hand and I turned it, not quite catching the strawberry flavoured cream in time to stop my fingers getting sticky. Sam rolled his eyes and turned to Dean. "How was your tour?"

"Oh, it was excellent. I'm ready to buy." He got a short laugh out of Sam, "So you might be onto somethin'. Looks like Dustin Burwash wasn't the first strange death around here."

"What happened?"

"About a year ago, before they broke ground, one of Larry's surveyors dropped dead while on the job. Get this; severe allergic reaction to bee stings."

"More bugs." Sam said grimly.

Dean nodded in agreement. "More Bugs."

* * *

We'd been driving around Oasis Plains for a while, just trying to make sense of what was happening here. Sam was driving while Dean leafed through Dad's journal and I leant forward in the back seat, reading over Dean's shoulder.

"You know," contemplated Dean, "I've heard of killer bees, but killer beetles? What is it that could make different bugs attack?"

"Well, hauntings sometimes include bug manifestations."

"Yeah, but I didn't see any evidence of ghost activity."

"Yeah, me neither." Sam agreed, as did I; there'd been no ozone smell in that hole, only the smell of fresh soil.

"Maybe they're being controlled somehow. You know, by something or someone." Dean asked.

"You mean, like Willard?"

"Yeah, bugs instead of rats."

"There are cases of psychic connections between people and animals - elementals, telepaths."

"Pied Piper of Hamlin."

"Yeah, or that whole Timmy-Lassie thing." Dean agreed, then seemed to realise something. "Larry's kid - he's got bugs for pets."

"Matt?" Sam asked; I'd seen him talking to a boy not much older than I appeared to be, must have been this Matt. "He did try to scare the realtor with a tarantula."

"You think he's our Willard?"

"I don't know." Sam answered, "Anything's possible, I guess."

"Ooh, hey. Pull over here." Dean was pointing to one of the finished houses; there were no cars on the drive and no lights on. It looked like this one hadn't sold yet.

Sam pulled into the driveway. "What are we doing here?"

"It's too late to talk to anybody else." Dean answered, getting out of the car and opening the garage door.

Sam leant out the car window. "We're gonna squat in an empty house?"

"I wanna try the steam shower. Come on." Dean waved us into the garage, glancing up and down the street. "Come on!"

Sam pulled the car into the garage, smacking Dean through the window as he drove passed. I cuffed him across the back of the head. "Don't hit your brother."

"I could say the same to you!"

"Don't hit your brother without reason."

We got out of the car, and Sam and I grinned at each other, we hugged, Sam lifting and dropping me before Dean joined us in the darkness, having shut the garage door behind the car.

"He hit me first; do I have reason enough to hit him back?"

"Sorry, De, I got there first."

We grabbed blankets from the car and headed into the house, fully expecting that it wouldn't be furnished. We bedded down for the night in a carpeted room upstairs that had some sort of crazy soft underlay under the carpet. One of the best nights of sleep I've had in a lwhile.

We'd gotten lucky; the house had power and water. I was able to cook porridge and coffee for the boys in the morning. All from packets of course, we hadn't got any fresh ingredients, but powdered milk isn't bad in porridge, and Dean takes his coffee black; Sam might not like powdered milk in his coffee, but he wouldn't complain about it, he's not quite the princess Dean is. Speaking of which, Dean had taken the shower after I'd finished that morning, and we hadn't seen him since; we could still hear the water running.

"We should eat his porridge, he clearly isn't that hungry, and he wouldn't want it cold anyway." I rationalised. Not that Dean was ever very fond of porridge, too healthy for his tastes.

Sam was about to reply when the police scanner crackled to life. I used the distraction to pilfer the last of the porridge, while Sam listened with a frown on his face.

"Another one, we need to check this out. I'll fetch Dean." And he disappeared from the kitchen. I started packing things away, in between mouthfuls of sticky and increasingly cold porridge.

* * *

We pulled up to a house with police and medics all over the front lawn. Dean parked behind a couple of police cars and we got out, Sam and I sharing an umbrella and Dean having one to himself. A black body bag was being wheeled out of the house as we approached Larry, the developer from the day before.

"Hello. You're, uh, back early" Larry greeted us.

"Yeah, we just drove in, wanted to take another look at the neighbourhood." Replied Dean

"What's going' on?" Sam asked.

"You guys met, uh... Lynda Bloome at the barbeque?"

"The realtor." Sam confirmed.

"Well, she, uh... passed away last night." Larry glanced over his shoulder, where the coroners were loading the body bag into the back of a car.

While this didn't really come as much of a shock to us, given that we'd heard on the police scanner that a body had been discovered, we did our best to look surprised and concerned. "What happened?"

"I'm still trying' to find out. Identified the body for the police. Look, I-I'm sorry, this isn't a good time now."

Larry excused himself to go and talk to a police officer and we turned inward, forming a small huddle under the two umbrellas.

"You know what we have to do, right?"

"Yeah. Get in that house."

"See if we got a bug problem."

We hung about until the police left, staying out of sight. Then, from a side street beside the house, the boys climbed a fence, balancing precariously on the top of it while Dean got the window open and they disappeared inside, leaving me outside to keep watch.

They didn't spend long inside, and they came back out the same way they went in, wiping down for prints as they left. They filled me in on what they'd found once we were all safely back inside the warm and dry Impala.

Spiders. Big, dead spiders.

I'm so glad I was the lookout.

Our next step was to speak to our suspect; Matt, Larry's son, who had a pet tarantula. We pulled up by the bus stop just as the school bus was dropping him off. We watched as he disappeared into the woods at the side of the road.

"Isn't his house that way?" Dean asked pointing in the direction opposite to the one in which Matt had disappeared.

"Yup."

"So where's he goin'?"

"I'm gonna go find out."

"Wait! Ali? How about you stay here and _we'll_ go find out where he's going." Sam protested.

I waved him off as I got out of the car. "He's a teenage boy, Sam. A kinda nerdy looking teenage boy with a thing for bugs, a teenage girl bats her eyes at him and tells him "he's so smart", he'll be falling over himself to tell me anything I ask."

My brothers got out of the car anyway. Dean folded his arms and gave me the 'you really want to have this argument?' look.

"Ugh, fine. Just stay out of sight."

I checked my reflection in the car window, pulling my top down a little to better show off my assets (yes, I have assets; they're new, kinda small but I'm quite pleased with them) and fluffing my hair a little. I bit my lips for colour and gave my reflection a bright smile. Thankful that I was dressed my age today; jeans that hugged my curves (also new), a low cut tank top and a plaid shirt open over the top, my hair in a single braid and carrying my normal worn leather satchel. Other than the jeans, which were a bit too tight to allow for movement that I'd want when hunting, it was pretty much the same as the boys wear most days.

I headed into the woods, the same way Matt had gone, following a well-worn trail that quickly dispersed once inside the woods, going every which way. I followed the sound of footsteps from up ahead and tried to ignore the footsteps following me.

I found Matt enthralled with a long-limbed bug of some kind, as I watched it crawled onto his hand and he turned, fetching a clear plastic box from his school bag.

"Hi!" I called as I approached, and he looked up in confusion.

"What are you doin' out here?"

"I'm exploring. My brothers are looking around the neighbourhood again. They haven't even finished building it; I don't see what exactly is so interesting about it."

"Well, I guess they're sort of exploring too." He held his hand up to the box, but the insect wandered the other way, headed down his wrist.

I giggled slightly. "Looks like he doesn't want to go in the box."

He held the box in front of the insect again, only to have it change direction once more. "He'll go, eventually. I'm Matt by the way."

"I'm Alison. So, Matt; you sure know a lot about insects."

"I'm, uh…" he blushed slightly, looking at the insect on the back of his hand rather than at me. "I'm studying them for an AP science class."

"AP science? Wow, you must be pretty smart." The blush darkened a shade or two. "Did you hear what happened to Lynda, the realtor?"

"I heard she died this morning."

"Yeah, the police said it was spider bites. Are there a lot of poisonous spiders around here? I'll be honest; spiders kind of give me the heebie-jeebies."

He laughed slightly, "Yeah, spiders do that to a lot of people. But there's nothing deadly poisonous around here. She must have been allergic, or been bitten by a _lot_ of spiders, a nest or something."

"Hmm, weird for a spider nest to be in a brand new house like that, but I bet you see a lot of weird insect activities?" I ducked my head, looking up at him through my lashes with a small smile.

"There is somethin' going on here." He leant a little closer, as if telling me a secret. "I don't know what... but something's happening with the insects. Let me show you something."

He grabbed his backpack and gestured for me to follow. "Last year, one of the surveyors died of bee stings, and this year, we lost a guy who was working for the Gas Company, and now Lynda."

"What do you think happened to the Gas Company guy?"

"I don't know, but it sure is weird. I can't find a rational explanation for what's happening and there's no record of insects behaving like this."

"Like what?" We emerged at that moment into a clearing; the sound of insect's wings buzzing in the trees, the grass, and the sky filled the air.

"From bees to earthworms, beetles... you name it. It's like they're congregating here."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

There were echoes here; old ones, very old. It wasn't something you could 'hear' or 'smell' it was more a sense that there was once something there. So much of something that the place had become saturated, and you could still feel it there today. The Somme was like that, except that when it rains, you can still smell the blood soaked into the earth, and walking through the fields you can still find bullets and pieces of frag and even bone.

I shuddered, walking further into the clearing, feeling the long ago echoes of pain, suffering, death; there were lots of Deathcries here, old enough not to make me sick, but it was still… unpleasant.

"What's that?" Sam asked, coming up behind me and pointing to a darkened mound of grass a few yards away.

I sighed, "Matt, meet my slightly overprotective brothers, Sam and Dean. They must have been following me."

Matt looked a little afraid as he gave a small wave. Somehow I don't think that my flirting will have any lasting effects on the boy now; probably for the best.

We headed over to the mound that Sam had gestured at, and I shrunk back once I got close enough to see it clearly. The ground was literally crawling with worms, hundreds of them! Dean tapped with his foot at one patch, where there didn't even seem to be any grass left beneath the worms, and they fell away, creating a hole in the ground. He crouched down and used a stick to poke around in the hole.

"There's somethin' down there." He announced as the stick made a tapping noise against something solid. He put the stick down and reached into the hole with his hand. His face showed the same disgust I felt as he felt around for a moment before withdrawing his hand. There in his grip, covered in dirt and worms, was a human skull.

"Alas, poor Yorick!"

Matt and Sam snickered slightly, but Dean didn't seem to appreciate my humour.

* * *

We pulled up outside the local university and got out of the car into the brilliant sunshine. Sam fetched the box of skeletons from the back seat and draped his jacket over it, to keep from alarming any of the students. "So," he started, "a bunch of skeletons in an unmarked grave."

"Yeah. Maybe this is a haunting. Pissed off spirits? Some unfinished business?" Dean suggested.

"Yeah, maybe." Sam agreed, "Question is, why bugs? And why now?"

"That's two questions."

We made our way into the building, asking for directions to the lecture theater that the Anthropology Professor had agreed to meet us in.

We handed over the bones, and he departed with them to his office, or lab, or something. Telling us to come back in an hour. We found a café on campus that had some computers for students to use and Sam found a pretty college girl willing to allow him to use her log-on, but she was far more interested in chatting to him to allow him to actually use the computer we'd gained access to. He took her off and bought her a coffee, a pained 'take one for the team' look on his face as he went, and I commandeered the computer. Searching for anything that could make bugs congregate and attack. I didn't find anything in the hour and we returned to the lecture theater hoping that the bones could shed some light on the mystery.

"So, you three are students?" The professor asked, returning with our box and placing it on the desk.

"Yeah. Yeah, uh, we're in your class - Anthro 101?" Sam blagged.

"Oh, yeah." Though he didn't seem completely convinced.

"So, what about the bones, Professor?" Dean was quick to refocus on what we needed to know, rather than who we are.

"This is quite an interesting find you've made. I'd say they're 170 years old, give or take. The time-frame and the geography heavily suggest Native American."

"Were there any tribes or reservations on that land?" Sam asked.

The professor looked uncomfortable, "Not according to the historical record. But the, uh, relocation of native peoples was quite common at that time."

"Right. Well, are there any local legends? Oral histories about the area?"

"Well... you know, there's a Euchee tribe in Sapulpa. It's about sixty miles from here. Someone out there might know the truth."

* * *

The diner on the reservation was small and ramshackle, but welcoming, and smelt of grease and chips. A man fitting the description we'd been given when we asked around town for someone who could tell us the oral histories of the area was sat playing cards at a table to the right of the door.

"Joe White Tree?" Sam asked, and the man nodded in confirmation. "We'd like to ask you a few questions, if that's all right."

"We're students from the university." Dean explained, only to have the old man cut him off.

"No, you're not. You're lying."

Dean, somewhat taken aback, tried again. "Well, truth is-"

"You know who starts sentence with "truth is"? Liars."

Sam and Dean exchanged a look, while I muffled a laugh behind my hand; I liked this old man.

"Have you heard of Oasis Plains? It's a housing development near the Atoka Valley." Sam asked.

Joe White Tree addressed Dean, "I like him. He's not a liar." I laughed again, and Joe tossed me a smile and a wink before turning back to Sam. "I know the area."

"What can you tell us about the history there?" Sam asked.

"Why do you wanna know?" Joe asked, examining us each in turn

"Something... something bad is happening in Oasis Plains." Sam explained truthfully, "We think it might have something to do with some old bones we found down there - Native American bones."

Joe, frowned slightly, as if this news was not unexpected, but was still troubling, then he sighed and began his story. "I'll tell you what my grandfather told me, what his grandfather told him. Two hundred years ago, a band of my ancestors lived in that valley. One day, the American cavalry came to relocate them. They were resistant, the cavalry impatient. As my grandfather put it, on the night the moon and the sun share the sky as equals, the cavalry first raided our village. They murdered, raped. The next day, the cavalry came again, and the next, and the next. And on the sixth night, the cavalry came one last time. And by the time the sun rose, every man, woman, and child still in the village was dead. They say on the sixth night, as the chief of the village lay dying, he whispered to the heavens that no white man would ever tarnish this land again. Nature would rise up and protect the valley. And it would bring as many days of misery and death to the white man as the cavalry had brought upon his people."

"Insects. Sounds like nature to me." Dean observed. "Six days."

"And on the night of the sixth day, none would survive." Joe finished his tale, ominously.

We thanked Joe and left, hurrying back to the car to return to Oasis Plains now that we knew what we were dealing with.

"When did the gas company man die?" Sam asked, starting to do the maths.

"Uh, let's see, we got here Tuesday, so, Friday the twentieth."

"March twentieth? That's the spring equinox." Sam informed us.

"The night the sun and the moon share the sky as equals." Dean made the connection to the Native American story.

"So, every year about this time, anybody in Oasis Plains is in danger. Larry built this neighbourhood on cursed land."

"And on the sixth night - that's tonight." Dean pointed out.

"If we don't do something, Larry's family will be dead by sunrise. So how do we break the curse?" Sam asked.

"You don't break a curse." Dean told him, "You get out of its way. We've gotta get those people out now."

We raced back to Oasis Plains, the daylight was fading fast and we were running out of time.

Dean was on the phone with Larry, trying ineffectually to get him to take his family and leave for the night.

Sam took over, phoning Matt in another attempt to get the family, the only people left in the valley, out before it was too late.

Having done all they could at that end, Dean pressed further down on the accelerator, speeding us onwards in the gathering darkness. I strained my eyes in the back seat to decipher the handwriting in Dad's journal, desperately trying to find anything on how to break a curse.

Despite our best efforts, the family was still in their house when we pulled up outside, a brief argument was interrupted at midnight by the sound of angry buzzing rising over the trees. We all fell silent to listen, then the fluorescent bug light on the porch started killing flies, at a much higher rate than you'd expect.

"All right, it's time to go. Larry, get your wife." Dean

"Guys." Matt was staring up into the sky were thousands of bugs could be seen swarming towards the house, blocking out the moon.

"Everybody in the house. Everybody in the house, go!" Dean's words prompted us into action and we all rushed for the door, locking it behind us. I grabbed the doormat, a sort of woven thing, and rolled it up, cramming it against the bottom of the door like a draft excluder. Behind me Larry's wife Joanie was asking what was going on and being told to call 911. Dean and Larry went to fetch towels to help block spaces around the doors and windows and Sam and Matt hurried up the stairs to lock down the upstairs.

"Phones are dead." Joanie informed us.

"They must have chewed through the phone lines." Dean replaced the rolled up doormat with a thick towel and I turned to ask Larry for duct tape when the lights went out. "And the power lines." Dean finished, looking around apprehensively.

"I need my cell." Larry grabbed the device off the side and checked the screen. "No signal."

A tapping sound, like heavy rain on a car roof began to become more noticeable as Sam and Matt joined us from upstairs.

"They're blanketing the house." Dean exclaimed, we stared at the windows, the room becoming darker as the light was blocked out by the hundreds of thousands of bugs gathering against the outside.

The tense silence was broken only by the pattering of more bugs hitting the house and eventually Larry's nervous question, "So what do we do now?"

"We try to outlast it." Answered Sam, "Hopefully, the curse will end at sunrise."

 _On the sixth night, none would survive._ It certainly sounded like the curse would end at sunrise, possibly even be broken if we could survive. Like a high stakes gamble, we survive, the curse is broken; the curse prevails, we die. Not that I'd be hanging around for next spring to test my theory, even assuming that we did survive the night.

Dean returned from wherever he'd gone while Sam was talking with a can of bug spray in his hand.

"Bug spray?" Joanie screeched, presumably thinking that we'd need a lot more than just one can for the number of bugs we were dealing with.

"Trust me."

A creaking noise drew our attention to the fireplace, and I shrunk into Dean's side. How do we fight this? Millions of tiny assailants, all trying to sting and bite us, how could we possibly defend ourselves? I'd rarely been so scared, and we'd never been so outnumbered. All these years hadn't prepared us to fight something like this; how _could_ you fight something like this? I trembled slightly as the enormity of what we were facing hit me, curling my fingers into the sleeve of Dean's leather jacket and whimpering his name.

"What is that?" Matt asked, as Sam took a step or two towards the creaking fireplace.

"The flue."

"All right, I think everybody needs to get upstairs." Dean said, giving me a nudge towards the staircase. A sudden crack froze everyone in place, and the bees were swarming from the fireplace and Joanie was screaming. Everyone waved their arms over their heads, trying to protect themselves and I raced up the stairs as the sudden light of a flame lit up the hallway from downstairs and Dean's voice raised above the chaos. "All right, everybody upstairs! Now! Go, go, go!"

I threw myself through a door, slamming it behind me and turning to grab a sheet from the bed, jamming it against the crack at the bottom of the door. I heard panicked voices from the hallway and the rattle of the loft ladder being pulled down. Idjits! Lofts are usually well ventilated to prevent damp! Bugs can easily get in under the eaves!

I opened the door, fighting against the sheet at its base just in time to see the loft hatch slam closed and a swarm of bees bounce off the wooden panel. I quickly closed myself back into the bedroom, replacing the shield at the bottom of the door and swatting at the bugs that had gotten in when I opened the door.

I stared about the room, my mind racing. Dawn was hours away, and while this room looked to be fairly secure, there was no way that my brothers and the Pike family in the attic would last that long. I had to do something to help them! But what? What could I possibly do while I was trapped in this room and they were stuck in the attic, sitting ducks, just waiting for bees, or spiders, or beetles, or lord knew what else to kill them?

I up-ended my satchel over the bed, scrambling through the contents; some emergency rations, a torch, spare batteries, dad's journal, my purse and a few pieces of litter fell to the bed amidst other, less innocent items. An assortment of knives, throwing stars and other weapons were concealed within the lining and the bag was heavy when it hit the floor. Finally I snatched up what I'd been searching for; a sage smudge stick and a lighter.

Sage is used for cleansing and I lit the end, flicking it to put out the flame and leave the smoke coiling upwards. I had little hope that this would be enough to break the curse, but doing something made me feel better, calmed my mind and let me think.

The curse was powerful, uttered with a man's dying breath it would have used the power of the Deathcry. Little could be done against it, my little smudge stick certainly wouldn't do the trick, but perhaps surviving until dawn would be enough. If only dawn were a little closer at hand; it was still hours away!

That's it!

If I can somehow make dawn come quicker, we'll all be safe! But how? Messing with time is dangerous, and takes far more power than I have at my disposal. So I can't make time go faster, but maybe I can make it appear to go quicker? Long car journeys always go so quickly when I'm asleep for most of the way, but if everyone is asleep that won't save them, they just won't be awake when the bugs kill them. Really not much of a solution, unless the bugs are asleep as well.

Some sort of sleeping curse that will break automatically at sunrise, something to make every living thing fall into a deep sleep. Kind of like the fairies placed on the palace in Sleeping Beauty.

I grabbed dad's journal, flicking through the pages and swatting at the occasional bug that braved the smoke around me to land on my skin. Another advantage to the smudge stick, I thought idly while another part of my mind raced, trying to remember everything I'd ever learned of magick.

I've never cursed anything before, never really needed to, what with being one of the good guys. Eventually I dropped the book, knowing I wouldn't find anything in its pages, and sat cross legged in the middle of the bed, closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. I had to be calm if I was going to think, and casting spells took concentration.

What is a curse? A spell cast with malicious intent, without the permission of the person the curse would affect. How do you place a curse? Much the same way as any spell; focus. Chanting and objects can be used as ways of focusing power, or directing it, like hex bags for example. Maybe I could create a hex bag that would affect the whole building, something that would continue to work even after I was asleep, since I was in the house too.

I would need things to go in the bag though, and the usual witchy things, bones etc. wouldn't be easily obtained. I took my smudge stick with me and ran to the en-suite bathroom, rummaging through the medicine cabinet. Yahtzee! Sleeping pills! I grabbed the whole bottle and returned to my seat on the bed, stripping the pillow case off one of the pillows and grabbing a pen from my bag I started hurriedly marking symbols on it. Once I was done it was a simple case of tipping the pills into the middle of the circle, tying it up into a bag, placing it in a fireproof bowl I'd tipped the pot pouri out of and focusing.

I reached down inside myself, to a place of calm and quiet, the place I usually go when I need to add some healing power to my ability to relieve people of pain, and pulled up all the power I could muster. I opened my eyes, watched as the symbols I'd scribbled on the pillowcase seemed to glow slightly and began to speak.

 _"Omnes in domo hoc, cadet in sopor, excitate vos e somno cum lumine de solis"_

The pills and the pillowcase burst into flames as the power burst out of me, and I fell back to lie on the bed.

I was still laying there what seemed like only a moment later, when sunlight poured through the east facing bedroom window. A few bugs picked themselves up and started flying into the glass, bouncing off it in the way bugs do. None showed any interest in me.

I got up and, pulling the sheet away from the bottom of the door, I went to investigate the situation in the rest of the house. The hallway was crawling with insects, but they ignored me as I stepped through them to get to the loft hatch. Ignoring the marks where termites had been eating away at the wood, I pulled the hatch open, catching the ladder as it descended and placing it steady on the ground at my feet.

"Ali? That you?" Dean's voice came from above, followed by the faces of both my brothers appearing in the opening above me, and I grinned up at them.

It worked. It really worked and my brothers were alive and well. It worked!

Some times I am a damn genius.


	10. Home

"All right. I've been cruisin' some websites. I think I found a few candidates for our next gig." Dean announced as I was leaving the bathroom, rubbing a towel through my hair after my morning shower.

"Good. I can't wait to get out of this dump." I grumbled; I was in a bad mood after finding that there had been no hot water left. I sat on the end of a bed, flipping my head over to make a turban.

"A fishing trawler found off the coast of Cali –- its crew vanished. And, uh, we got some cattle mutilations in West Texas. Hey." Sam and I looked up; I'd been trying to get water out of my left ear, and Sam had been doodling on the motel notepad. "Am I boring you with this hunting evil stuff?"

"No. I'm listening. Keep going." Sam assured him, before going straight back to his drawing.

"And, here, a Sacramento man shot himself in the head. Three times." He held up three fingers, waving them in Sam's direction. Then resorting to just plain waving, dropping his hand when Sam failed to take any notice. "Any of these things blowin' up your skirt, pal?"

I smirked slightly at Dean's exasperation, "Come on, Sammy, you're being rude."

Sam ignored me, flicking through the pages of the notepad that he'd been doodling in, "Wait. I've seen this."

"Seen what?" Dean questioned as Sam crossed the room to start searching through my satchel.

"What are you doing? It's polite to ask first, Sammy." Honestly, no such thing as privacy 'round here.

Sam pulled Dad's journal out of my bag and dropped the notepad on the bed. I got a brief glimpse of a drawing of a tree, done in pen with bold lines, kinda a beautiful drawing, before it was covered by the journal and Sam was rifling through the pictures inside. He pulled out one in particular and compared it to the sketch of the tree. "Dean, I know where we have to go next."

"Where?"

"Back home –back to Kansas."

"Okay, random. Where'd that come from?" Dean asked, he was feeling mild distress, but clearly trying, quite successfully, to hide it, so I left it alone for now.

Sam crossed to the desk where Dean sat, holding out the photo he'd taken from the journal. "All right, this photo was taken in front of our old house, right? The house where Mum died?"

Dean picked up the picture and looked at it, now clearly reticent. "Yeah."

"And it didn't burn down, right? I mean, not completely, they rebuilt it, right?" Sam went on, seemingly oblivious to Dean's distress.

"I guess so, yeah. What the hell are you talkin' about?" I crossed to hover behind Dean, leaning over his shoulder to look at the photo, placing a hand on his shoulder as I did, casually touching my thumb to the skin on the back of his neck, soothing his distress.

The picture had been taken outside their old house, it showed Mum and Dad hugging baby Sammy between them and little Dean grinning at the camera. "Wow, your ears used to stick out."

"Okay, look," Sam sat down opposite Dean at the table, "this is gonna sound crazy but…the people who live in our old house – I think they might be in danger."

"Why would you think that?"

Sam broke eye contact, "Uh…it's just, um…look, just trust me on this, okay?" He rose and moved to fetch his duffel, placing it on the end of his bed.

Dean stood to follow and I stepped back, going back to drying my hair. If Sam's packing, we're leaving, and I'd rather not have wet hair when we do. "Wait, whoa, whoa, trust you?" Dean questioned.

"Yeah."

"Come on, man, that's weak. You gotta give me a little bit more than that."

"I can't really explain it, is all."

"Well, tough. I'm not goin' anywhere until you do." Sam sighed and straightened, turning to face us.

"Is this something about your dreams, Sam?" I asked, coming to stand next to Dean and dropping the towel to the foot of the bed. "The premonitions about Jess?"

Dean turned to me in surprise as Sam nodded tersely. "Come again?"

"Look, Dean…I dreamt about Jessica's death – for days before it happened." Sam tried to explain.

Dean stood, staring at Sam for a beat before gesturing in my direction. "And how'd she find out and you didn't think to tell me?"

"Bloody Mary said." I explained. "Sam didn't want to talk, that's his call, it wasn't his fault I knew and I trusted that he'd talk when he was ready. Besides, we're telling you now."

Dean threw a hand in the air, turning to sit on his bed. "Sam, people have weird dreams, man. I'm sure it's just a coincidence."

"No, I dreamt about the blood dripping, her on the ceiling, the fire, everything, and I didn't do anything about it 'cause I didn't believe it." Sam's voice was rushed, "And now I'm dreaming about that tree, about our house, and about some woman inside screaming for help. I mean, that's where it all started, man, this has to mean something, right?"

"I don't know." Dean was overwhelmed, but my focus was on Sammy, being reminded of Jess was still painful for him, and having premonitions was kinda freaking him out too.

"What do you mean you don't know, Dean? This woman might be in danger. I mean, this might even be the thing that killed Mum and Jessica!"

"All right, just slow down, would ya?" He stood, pacing the room, letting his agitation show. "I mean, first you tell me that you've got the Shining? And then you tell me that I've gotta go back home? Especially when…" He drifted off into silence.

"When what?" I prompted quietly.

Dean looked between us despairingly, "When I swore to myself that I would never go back there."

After a moment's pause, Sam spoke, his voice much softer than before. "Look, Dean, we have to check this out. Just to make sure."

"I know we do." He sounded defeated, but he packed his bag and we were checked out and on the road half an hour later.

* * *

The drive to Lawrence, Kansas was possibly the calmest drive I've ever been on with Dean. It was slow, with steady acceleration and long, steady braking. It was quiet too, the music turned down but no one talking. We finally pulled into town and Dean went straight to a house in the suburbs. It was painted a pale blue, with a grey roof and an old silver Volvo parked out front.

Sam finally broke the quiet. "You gonna be all right, man?"

"Let me get back to you on that."

We sat for a moment, all looking at the house, until I lent forwards between the boys. "That is one creepy-ass tree." It was! Old and dead, missing all its leaves and smaller branches, the trunk of the tree was covered in ivy, with skeletal limbs rising up and twisting towards the house.

Sam gave me a scornful look before getting out of the car and leading the way to the front door, Dean and I followed.

"Yes?" A blonde woman answered the door, with a polite smile on her face.

Dean started the usual spiel, treating this like a regular case. "Sorry to bother you, ma'am, but we're with the Federal—"

"I'm Sam Winchester, and this is my brother, Dean and my sister, Alison." Sam interrupted; a slightly strange look on his face. "We used to live here. You know, we were just drivin' by, and we were wondering if we could come see the old place."

"Winchester." The woman breathed, "Yeah, that's so funny. You know, I think I found some of your photos the other night."

She invited us in and as we followed her into the light and airy home, I slipped my hand into Dean's. He shook his hand free and clenched it into a fist, his jaw tensing as he gazed about with pain filled eyes.

Dean's rejection stung slightly and as the boys followed the woman into the kitchen, I hung back, loitering in the doorway for a moment before excusing myself to use the bathroom.

Friendly voices from the kitchen drifted into the background as I made my way upstairs, noting the creaking step, fourth from the top. The house was nice, decorated in pale neutral tones, the light fittings and such slightly dated perhaps, and a few piles of boxes gave away that the family downstairs had only recently moved in. I opened a couple of doors, finding a little girl's room, decorated pink, and the master bedroom before getting the right door. It was as I was washing my hands that the light over the mirror began to flicker.

I'd been tense, on high alert since we'd stepped foot inside, Sam's visions had warned us that something was going on here and now I had some tangible proof. The temperature dropped slightly, and I turned the water off, reaching for a towel and examining the reflection of the room in the mirror.

Everything looked normal, so I continued as if I hadn't noticed anything, replacing the towel and reaching for the door handle. It wouldn't turn. The lock was a sliding latch, that wouldn't slide open, though it had moved freely when I'd locked it earlier. Neither lock nor door handle would move, so I turned back to face the room bracing my back against the door and reaching for the iron knife hidden in the lining of my satchel. I pulled the knife free of the lining, but left in inside the bag, gripping its handle tightly.

For a moment, nothing happened, but then the tap turned, water pouring into the basin, and steam started to rise, fogging the mirror above. Slowly, the words "Get out!" appeared on the mirror, as if traced by some invisible finger. I pulled the knife from my bag, transferred it to the other hand and reached back to try the lock again. It still wouldn't move, so I pulled a small pot of salt from my bag, sprinkle some into my palm and tried again, to no effect.

There was a moment's pause, I shifted my weight into a fighting stance, and changed the salt and knife over, so that the knife was in my right hand. Then the shampoo bottle flew at me, swiftly followed by everything else in the bathroom that wasn't tied down. I raised my arm, shielding my head and glanced at the floor. Hopefully the woman downstairs, whose name I hadn't caught, wouldn't hear and think I was trashing her bathroom.

Once everything that could be thrown, had been, the room went still, the temperature rose back to normal and the door yielded behind me. I left it open and started tidying up. The kiddies shampoo lid hadn't been on properly and there was a bit of a mess to clean up, but otherwise it only took a few minutes to return order to the room. Though whether it was the same order, and whether the home owners would notice that things had been moved was another question.

Sam and Dean were passing the bottom of the stairs when I finally made it back downstairs, they seemed tense and in a hurry to leave the house. I threw a quick wave to the woman and her daughter and followed after my brothers.

"You hear that?" Sam hissed as the door shut behind us, "A figure on fire."

"And that woman, Jenny, that was the woman in your dreams?" Dean replied as I jogged to keep up with the pace they were setting across the lawn.

"Yeah. And you hear what she was talking about? Scratching, flickering lights; both signs of a malevolent spirit."

"Yeah, well, I'm just freaked out that your weirdo visions are comin' true."

"Not to mention what happened to me in the bathroom!" My words made both of them stop and turn to me, in the middle of the road, still a few paces away from the Impala. "Lights flickered, temperature dropped, door locked, contents of the bathroom threw themselves at me. Message on the mirror said to 'Get out!', but I didn't get a look at the spirit itself."

"The thing in the house, do you think it's the thing that killed Mum and Jessica?" Sam asked me, slight panic in his voice.

I shook my head, "No, a spirit like that is likely to be tied to the place, so it can't have killed Jess. And throwing things at me was hardly welcoming, but it certainly wasn't fatal, so it's unlikely that the first thing you'd have known about it being in the house was it killing Mum." I sighed, rubbing a hand across a sore patch on my forearm before continuing. "If someone said something about seeing a figure on fire, and given who we know died a violent death in that house; we need to consider the fact that it could be Mum who's in there."

Sam's eyes bugged out in shock at my words, but Dean just flat out denied them, pointing a single finger at me with a firm "No. No way." before turning away.

* * *

We drove all the way to a petrol station before Dean spoke again. "We just gotta chill out, that's all. You know; if this was any other kind of job, what would we do?"

Sam huffed a breath of air as he and I joined Dean leaning against Baby while the tank filled. "We'd try to figure out what we were dealin' with. We'd dig into the history of the house."

"Exactly," Dean agreed, "except this time, we already know what happened."

"Yeah, but how much do we know?" Sam pointed out, "I mean, how much do you actually remember?"

"About that night, you mean?" Dean asked, as both Sam and I turned to face him. "Not much. I remember the fire…the heat." He paused for a moment, seemingly lost in old memories, before shaking himself slightly and continuing on as if unaffected. "And then I carried you out the front door."

"You did?" Sam questioned, as I looked at Dean with a renewed appreciation for my big brother's unerring devotion to Sammy.

"Yeah, what, you never knew that?" He'd been Sam's hero for so long, and rarely did Dean give it any thought at all.

Sam shook his head, "No."

"And, well, you know Dad's story as well as I do." Dean hurried on, trying not to linger on the story, the bad memories. "Mom was…was on the ceiling. And whatever put her there was long gone by the time Dad found her."

"And he never had a theory about what did it?" Sam asked.

"If he did, he kept it to himself." I replied. "God knows we asked him enough times." There was a pause while we all sat against the side of the Impala, lost in thought, before I cleared my throat. "Okay, so if this were any other case, we'd talk to witnesses."

"Yeah." Dean agreed, "We'll talk to Dad's friends, neighbours, people who were there at the time."

There was another pause, before Sam spoke quietly. "Does this feel like just another job to you?"

For a moment, no one answered, and then Dean excused himself to use the bathroom. I heard him walk away, rounding the side of the building before stopping, he dialled a number and it rang a couple of times before going to voicemail: "This is John Winchester. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean at 866-907-3235." _Seriously Dad? Answer your damn phone!_ We'd phoned before and gotten the same message, but it still stung. I mean, what are you supposed to do if this is an emergency and you _are_ Dean?

After the beep Dean left a message, his voice shaking slightly. "Dad? I know I've left you messages before. I don't even know if you'll get 'em. But I'm with Sam and Ali. And we're in Lawrence. And there's somethin' in our old house. I don't know if it's the thing that killed Mum or not, but…" his voice cracked and I looked up from where I'd been staring towards the ground and frowned in the direction Dean had taken. "I don't know what to do. So, whatever you're doin', if you could get here. Please. I need your help, Dad." He sounded so broken. I turned my gaze back to the stones under my feet; if Dean _was_ crying, and he sounded like he probably was, then he wouldn't want us to know.

* * *

The boys went to talk to Dad's old business partner, and I sat in the car, out of sight around the corner. They were impersonating police officers and I couldn't tag along. So I sat rereading the start of Dad's journal for the umpteenth time. He'd started writing in it when he was investigating what killed Mum. It contained all of the family's collective knowledge on the supernatural; accounts of hunts, information on different monsters, identifying features, and how to kill them, spells that might prove useful, contact details for other hunters. Everything went into that book, but only the first page had anything about Kansas.

Soon enough the boys returned and Sam started going through the phone book in the telephone booth we were parked next to. Dean filled me in; apparently Dad was seeing a palm reader in town before he and the boys left town, if we could figure out who then that would be the next person we'd talk to.

"All right," announced Sam, "so there are a few psychics and palm readers in town. There's someone named El Divino. There's, uh –there's the Mysterious Mister Fortinsky. Uh, Missouri Moseley—"

"Wait, wait. Missouri Moseley?"

"A person? Not the state?"

"What are you two talking about?"

"In Dad's journal…here, look at this." Dean grabbed the journal out of my hand, holding it out for Sam to see. "First page, first sentence, read that."

"I went to Missouri and I learned the truth."

* * *

We sat on lumpy chairs in Missouri's front room while she saw another customer, Dean flicked through a magazine without any real interest in it. The boys hadn't wanted me to come, but I'd argued that if this woman had told Dad about the supernatural all those years ago, then she wouldn't be too surprised to see a 14 year old tagging along, hell, she'd probably even be able to tell that I wasn't actually 14!

Dean finished flicking through his magazine, (he hadn't found anything worth reading) and dropped it back to the table just as Missouri, a large black woman with short hair held back with a head band, led her previous customer to the front door, reassuring him that his wife was faithful. He thanked her and left, and she turned to us as the door shut behind him.

"Whew. Poor bastard, his woman is cold-bangin' the gardener."

"Why didn't you tell him?"

"People don't come here for the truth. They come for good news."

We all three stared at her, before exchanging a look. Well, just because she knew her target audience and knew how to sell her services, didn't mean she wasn't psychic. She chivvied us through to the solarium before turning to face us.

"Well, lemme look at ya. Oh, you boys grew up handsome." She laughed, pointing a finger at Dean "And you were one goofy-lookin' kid, too."

Dean looked rather affronted, whilst Sam and I laughed. Then Missouri turned to Sam, taking his hand, "Sam. Oh, honey…I'm sorry about your girlfriend. And your father – he's missin'?"

"How'd you know all that?" Sam asked, pulling away from the woman just the slightest bit.

"Well, you were just thinkin' it just now." Sam raised his eyebrows, surprised.

"Well, where is he? Is he okay?" Dean interjected; his voice impatient and demanding.

"I don't know."

"Don't know? Well, you're supposed to be a psychic, right?"

"Boy, you see me sawin' some bony tramp in half? You think I'm a magician? I may be able to read thoughts and sense energies in a room, but I can't just pull facts out of thin air. Sit, please." The three of us seated ourselves on the couch opposite Missouri's chair which she sank into before sitting straight up and pointing angrily at Dean. "Boy, you put your foot on my coffee table, I'm 'a whack you with a spoon!"

I turned to Dean with a scowl and rapped my hand sharply across Dean's knee, he responded to both me and Missouri with a slightly petulant tone to his voice, "I didn't do anything!"

"But you were thinkin' about it." Dean's eyebrows raised and he shrunk back into his seat slightly, to my left Sam made a poor attempt to hide his smirk.

"Okay. So, our dad –" Sam started to steer the conversation back towards our purpose for visiting, "- when did you first meet him?"

"He came for a reading." Missouri told us, "A few days after the fire. I just told him what was really out there in the dark. I guess you could say…I drew back the curtains for him."

"What about the fire?" Dean asked, "Do you know about what killed our mom?"

"A little. Your daddy took me to your house. He was hopin' I could sense the echoes, the fingerprints of this thing."

"And could you?"

" I…" Missouri shook her head.

"What was it?" I asked in a small voice.

"I don't know. Oh, but it was evil." She told me softly before turning back to the boys. "So…you think somethin' is back in that house?"

"Definitely." Sam confirmed.

"I don't understand," Missouri murmured. "I haven't been back inside, but I've been keepin' an eye on the place, and it's been quiet. No sudden deaths, no freak accidents. Why is it actin' up now?"

"I don't know." Sam answered. "But Dad going missing and Jessica dying and now this house all happening at once –- it just feels like something's starting."

"That's a comforting thought." Dean stated dryly.

* * *

We drove back to the house with Missouri, hopefully Jenny would let us in and Missouri would be able to tell us a little more about what we were dealing with. Dean was just pulling away from the curb when Missouri turned to me.

"Well, Honey, you seem to have landed on your feet here; better than most of your kind."

I glanced down at my hands, where they were twisting in my lap before glancing back up to my brothers. There was something in the way she'd said "your kind" that made me feel… not attacked exactly, it wasn't aggressive enough for that, but I got the impression that she didn't approve of me. I dropped my eyes back to my hands, now picking at a small scab I couldn't recall the origin of, deliberately looking neither at Missouri, nor at Sam who was twisting in his seat to watch us. "Yes, I was lucky that Dad found me, that they welcomed me, that I can call them family. I love them more than anything in the world."

"What do you mean by 'her kind'?" Sam asked; his voice reproachful.

"I'm not quite sure, but she's not a human, her energy's all wrong." I could feel her eyes on me, studying me, her extra senses poking and prodding at me like a sample under a microscope and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. "Are you certain she's safe? Do you know what she is? What her abilities are? Where her loyalties lie?"

 _How dare she?!_ "I'm loyal to my family!" I hissed, glaring at the woman sitting next to me, "What I am is no business of yours. I appreciate your concern for my brothers' safety but I assure you that they are in no danger from me."

She withdrew from my anger and a tense silence filled the rest of the short journey. It was a relief to get out of the car when we arrived, Sam's hand was comforting in its warmth and security, so much larger than my own and yet I still consider him my baby brother. I leant into his shoulder as we approached the house, still bristling from Missouri's mistrust.

The details of what occurred at the door escaped me, all I cared to note was that we were granted entry, and that Jenny was shaken and afraid. I took her hand, pulling her panic from her and leaving dispassionate calm in its wake as I lead her to the kitchen and made her a cup of tea, by the time she realised that she felt better, she'd blame it on the tea.

* * *

Sam filled me in on the way back to Missouri's house; apparently the evil that had visited Sam's nursery that night all those years ago, had left a wound in the fabric of… reality? the ether? which attracted lesser evils in its wake. There were now a couple of spirits in the house, including a nasty poltergeist, which was what was causing all the trouble for Jenny and her children.

"So, what is all this stuff, anyway?" Dean questioned, sniffing at one of the ingredients he was adding to what looked a lot like a hex bag.

"Angelica Root, Van Van oil, crossroad dirt, a few other odds and ends." Missouri answered, placing another pot of dried roots onto the kitchen table were Dean sat assembling the bags.

She went on to explain that placing a bag in each of the corners of the house on each floor of the house would purify it, driving the spirits out. She also warned us that we'd have to work quickly, before the poltergeist could work out what we were doing and attempt to stop us. Meanwhile I pulled Dad's journal from my satchel and turned to the page on poltergeists. There wasn't much room, but I was able to add the ingredients list for the spell bags to the corner of the page and squeezed the instructions into the margin.

* * *

Jenny and the children were ushered out of the house by Missouri while Dean distributed the bags to us and went over the plan; Sam and I would take the upstairs, Dean would take the ground floor and Missouri would be in the basement. We'd place the bags in the walls as quickly as we could and purify the house before the spirits could fight back.

Missouri returned and collected her bundles then we split up, going to the three levels and starting to knock holes in the walls. I was using the end of a crowbar to punch my holes, the first in the wall of the little boy's room. I jammed the pointy end into the wall, wriggled it some to widen the hole and removed it, pushing the bag through the small hole and moving on to the next location, the bathroom I'd been attacked in earlier.

The wall here was tiled and much harder to punch a hole in. I ran the edge of the crowbar along the grout, hoping to be able to pull a tile off the wall, it would make the repair much smoother. Unfortunately my more considerate approach had to be abandoned when the shower head pulled itself from the wall and started hitting me over the head. One good strike with my full strength behind it smashed the tile and the bag was in the wall. I ran from the bathroom, leaving the violent shower head behind, running for the master bedroom where Sam should have been placing his second bag.

I sensed the pain a second before I saw him, lying choking on the floor, an electrical cable wrapped tightly around his neck and pulling him away from the bag that lay on the floor a few inches from the hole he had hammered into the wall. I grabbed the bag, completing the job Sam had been prevented from before wrestling with the cable that was choking the life from my brother.

"Dean and Missouri had better hurry up!" I exclaimed, pulling the end of the cable away from Sam's neck and ignoring the way it attempted to ensnare my neck with the loose end.

The cable was stubborn, and the metal was strong, but I was stronger; I pulled until the cable snapped, ignoring the pain in my fingers. Once broken, the cable went lax and I worked to quickly unwind it from Sam's neck and remove his pain, allowing him to breathe easier.

We pulled ourselves to our feet and hurried hand in hand to the kitchen, where Dean should be finishing his set of bags.

"Dean!" I called, drawing his attention just in time for him to duck, avoiding the kitchen knife now quivering in the cupboard door behind where Dean's head had been only a moment before.

The rest of the knives jumped from the draw and flew across the kitchen, some flying at Dean, who flipped the table up to use as a shield, the rest flying towards me and Sam. We dived back around the corner, me pushing Sam ahead of me in a slight panic as the knives turned in the air behind us to continue their pursuit. Suddenly there was a white flash as Dean successfully completed the spell, banishing the spirit and the knives clattered point first into the walls and floor around us.

"Sam? Dean? Everyone okay?" I called, turning back to eye the sharp kitchen utensils where they left scratches in the plaster and floor boards and in a couple of cases actually struck hard enough that the points were stuck in the wall.

"I'm good!" Dean answered, coming around the corner. I gave him a critical once over and nodded in agreement, all my senses confirmed that my brothers were both unhurt.

I reached forward to start retrieving the knives to be washed and returned to the kitchen when Sam's voice croaked out behind me. "Dean…"

I turned to Sam in alarm, had I missed something? Was he injured and I hadn't sensed it? Dean hissed in a breath through his teeth as I took a step forwards, reaching out for my baby brother.

"Ali, don't move okay?" Dean caught my upper arms, holding me still. "You're going to be okay, you're gonna be fine."

I twisted slightly in his grip to look back over my left shoulder at him. What was he talking about? Surely Sam was the one who was hurt, though I hadn't sensed any pain from him.

The black plastic handle of a knife caught my attention as it wobbled in the air behind me. Dean's slightly horrified eyes were already focused on it, but it took me a moment to work out what it was, and what it was doing there. How was it hovering in the air like that? Why did it move when I did?

My brother's voices, raised in pitch by their worry, faded in volume to my ears as the meaning of the knife handle behind me sank in.

I'd been hit.

There was a knife embedded in my shoulder.

I was vaguely aware of Sam pulling me against his chest and pressing around the wound. I watched in a detached sort of way as Dean pulled it out and dropped it to the floor.

I watched it as it hit the ground, rocking slightly, the light playing across the blood that dripped gently off the blade, leaving little circles on the wooden floor. I thought idly that Jenny was lucky it hadn't been a carpet; blood's not too difficult to mop up off a wooden floor.

My brothers' voices slowly faded back in as I became aware of warmth flowing down from my shoulder, where Sam's hands still pressed.

That was _my_ blood on the floor.

I looked up from the jewel bright red coating the blade at our feet into Dean's face, fear beginning to rise as it really started to register that I'd been hit in the back with a kitchen knife, that I was hurt, bleeding, possibly badly hurt and I couldn't go to hospital.

Would I be okay? Was I going to bleed out? Dean? Help me!

Dean's hands replaced Sam's, keeping pressure on the wound as he pulled me back into the kitchen and over to the sink. Then he was pushing me forward, bending me over the sink, ripping my shirt open at the shoulder and running the tap over the wound.

I stared down as the water ran orangey-red into the sink beneath me.

Dean's voice was low and reassuring, though the words weren't quite making sense to me. The water was running pink now, and then a sharp pain in my shoulder brought the world into sudden focus.

My shoulder was burning, just next to the sharp pain of the needle Dean was threading through my skin. Sam was hovering just behind, a bottle of gin in his hand; no doubt part of why my shoulder was burning.

I looked up at him, trying to relax and not to flinch away from where Dean was patching me up. "Sam, how bad is it?"

My voice was quiet, small and sounded very young to my ears, and Sam's eye's snapped to mine. He stepped forward, taking my hand from where it rested on the counter and squeezing gently. "You're gonna be fine, Ali." He reassured, calmness seeping into his eyes and helping to slow my racing heart and panicked breathing. "It wasn't that deep, and didn't hit anything vital. Dean's gonna sew you up and you'll be good as new in a couple of months."

I was shivering from the cold of the running water by the time Dean finished sewing and pulled me up to standing, drying my shoulder off with a cloth and tapping gauze over it. The pain was fairly dull now that the burn from the alcohol had faded, but I was sure that when the shock wore off it would be throbbing.

Dean pulled me into a hug, "Sorry, I'm not as good with a needle as you are, kiddo, you're gonna have a bit of a scar."

I huffed a laugh as Sam joined our hug and wiped tears from my eyes that I hadn't noticed I'd cried.

* * *

My fingers and shoulder were throbbing. I had been sleeping in the back of the car, and judging by the darkness outside, I'd been sleeping for several hours, but the pain in my shoulder had reminded me of the old days. The nightmares had woken me and I wasn't likely to get any more sleep for a while.

"So, why are we still here?" Dean questioned, prompting me to sit up and take note of our location; parked across the street from the old house, all the lights were out and everything seemed quiet.

My movement drew my brothers attention and they twisted in their seats to look at me. "Hey, Sleeping Beauty. How ya feelin'?" Dean grinned at me and I grimaced in return.

"I wish painkillers worked on Prangeni." I'd had a very high pain tolerance when I'd lived with my father, but it had faded over the years of living with a family who loved me and didn't hurt me for food.

Dean winced in sympathy, reaching back to muss my hair before turning back to Sam. "All right, so, tell me again, what are we still doin' here?"

"I don't know." Sam peered out the window at the house. "I just…I still have a bad feeling."

"Why?" Dean questioned. "Missouri did her whole Zelda Rubenstein thing, the house should be clean, it should be over."

"Yeah, well, probably." Sam answered vaguely. "But I just wanna make sure, that's all."

"Yeah, well, problem is I could be sleeping in a bed right now." Dean grumbled, sliding down in his seat and trying to settle in for a nap. I reached up with my right hand to prod gingerly at my injured shoulder, silently agreeing with Dean about the bed. Not that I'd be able to sleep, but it would be less uncomfortable.

"Dean. Look, Dean!" Sam grabbed Dean's arm, shaking him to alertness before we all lunged for door handles to respond to whatever Sam had seen.

The movement caused a shockwave of pain to roll out from my shoulder down my arm and across my body, freezing my breath in my lungs and I collapsed against the door gasping.

"You grab the kids, I'll get Jenny." Dean said as the two of them sprinted across the lawn towards the house. I sat in the car, watching helplessly as Jenny disappeared from the upstairs window that she'd been banging on, and Sam and Dean disappeared through the front door.

I moved slower to open the door, expecting the pain now, and bracing for it at every little movement of my left arm. I pulled myself laboriously slowly from the car and rushed across in time to meet Dean returning with Jenny from the house. We all turned to watch the door and I strained my ears, cursing my injured arm for preventing me from being able to do anything to help.

Footsteps thundered down the stairs then stopped and I heard Sam address the little girl, "All right, Sari, take your brother outside as fast as you can, and don't look back." There was a thud, a crash, a little girl's scream, then Sari raced out of the building, her little brother in tow and ran straight to their mother.

Jenny grabbed up the little boy and Dean caught hold of Sari's shoulder, bending down to her level and speaking urgently. "Sari, where's Sam?"

"He's inside." Came the tearful reply, "Something's got him."

Horrified, I spun back to look at the house, only to see the front door slam closed, my baby brother now trapped on the other side of it.

Dean ran for the Impala, wrenching open the boot and grabbing an axe and a rifle. I legged it for the door, trying the handle, unsurprised to find that it didn't give under my hand, I eyed the door, wondering if I could break it down despite my injured shoulder. Adrenaline is a powerful painkiller and my shoulder wasn't hurting me now, though I knew I'd suffer later if I caused more damage to it. Dean reached my side and I stepped smartly back as he swung the axe.

I could hear more crashes coming from inside the house as I stepped to Dean's side, pulling the axe from his hand and swinging as hard as I could with only one arm at the hinges. The door fell in as I struck the third and final hinge and Dean rushed passed me into the house, rifle at his shoulder.

Sam was pinned to a wall, his pain was minimal and he wasn't feeling much distress either, which was weird, considering there was a figure on fire walking slowly towards him.

"Sam? Sam!" Dean raised his rifle at the figure.

"No, don't! Don't!" Sam cautioned.

"What, why?!"

"Because I know who it is. I can see her now." Sam had tears in his eyes, but was smiling.

Dean and I turned back to the figure in confusion and the fire seemed to vanish, leaving a very familiar, smiling blonde woman garbed in a white nightgown.

"Mum?" Dean breathed in wonder, eyes wide and fixed on her, hardly daring to blink.

"Dean." Mum smiled gently at him before stepping away and approaching Sam, where he was still pinned to the wall. "Sam." Her smile faded. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Sam asked in confusion, but she offered no reply, turning away to glare up at the ceiling.

"You, get out of my house. And let go of my son." Once again, she burst into flames. The flames roared upwards, reaching the ceiling and spilling across it before disappearing.

Sam fell away from the wall, the force holding him was gone only a moment after the flames vanished, leaving the house in darkness. Sam stepped over to us and we all stared at each other for a moment in silence. "Now it's over." Sam stated with certainty.

* * *

The next morning Dean and I stood by the car with Jenny, looking through the old photos she'd found of the family. Dean thanked her for them, the conversation light as he stowed them carefully in the boot of the car, belying just how much those photos meant to him.

Sam, sitting on the front steps of the house, was joined by Missouri, who was moving rather stiffly after having her leg hit with a trunk by the spirit the night before. She'd been checking the house for leftover spirits, giving it a thorough going over to make sure she didn't miss any again.

"Well, there are no spirits in there anymore, this time for sure."

"Not even my mum?" Sam asked her, looking up as she lowered herself to the step beside him.

"No." She shook her head.

"What happened?"

"Your mum's spirit and the poltergeist's energy, they cancelled each other out." She explained in a gentle voice. "Your mum destroyed herself goin' after the thing."

"Why would she do something like that?"

"Well, to protect her boys, of course." Sam nodded in understanding, glancing away as tears filled his eyes. Missouri reached to place a hand on his shoulder, but pulled back. "Sam, I'm sorry."

"For what?" Sam looked back at her with surprise.

Missouri looked at him through slightly narrowed eyes. "You sensed it was there, didn't you? Even when I couldn't."

"What's happening to me?" Sam asked in a low voice, glancing towards where Dean and I were still by the car, Dean chatting easily with Jenny.

"I know I should have all the answers." She said apologetically, "But I don't know."

Dean wrapped up his chat with Jenny, called Sam over and I started the careful process of lowering myself into the backseat without moving my shoulder. With a wince or two I was in, Sam hovering awkwardly behind me until I was able to turn and smile at him, and then, with smiles, waves and shouted promises to stay in touch, we left Lawrence, Kansas.


	11. Asylum

Dean was flicking through Dad's journal for the umpteenth time, sat at the table at some shady motel, yet another in the string of poorly decorated but otherwise unremarkable motels we'd always stayed in when we weren't with Bobby, or Pastor Jim.

"Well, what about Caleb?" Sammy asked me as he paced the room, irritably fiddling with his phone.

"Yep." I was reclining on the bed, favouring my left shoulder, which still had hardly healed after nearly two weeks. I idly examined a crack in the yellowed plaster over my head. We were still searching for Dad, but I'd been wracking my brains for so long trying to come up with something we'd not tried yet, that they were beginning to feel like mush.

"Well, what'd he say?" Dean asked from his seat.

"Same as Jefferson, Pastor Jim and all the rest, if they hear from him they'll let Bobby know." I replied, wincing as I pulled myself into a seated position. "Bobby hadn't heard anything when I called a couple of days ago, but if you wanna look desperate, Sam, go ahead and call again." Sam gave me what Dean and I fondly refer to as bitchface #14 and turned to Dean.

"What about the journal? Any leads in there?"

"No, same as last time I looked. Nothing I can make out..." He laughed a little, still focused on the pages he was slowly leafing through, "I love the guy, but I swear, he writes like friggin' Yoda."

Sam sat next to me on the bed with a sort of a 'hmmpf' noise through his nose. "You know, maybe we should call the Feds. File a missing person's."

"We've talked about this. Dad'd be pissed if we put the Feds on his tail."

"I don't care anymore." Sam replied, as Dean took his feet off the chair in front of him and crossed the room to search for the mobile that had started ringing from somewhere in the jacket that was tossed on the other bed. "After all that happened back in Kansas, I mean...he should've been there, Dean. You said so yourself. You tried to call him and...nothing."

"I know!" Dean moved to rummaging through his duffel, "Where the hell is my cellphone?"

"You know, he could be dead for all we know!"

"Shut up, Sam!" Don't say that. You can't say that.

"Don't say that! He's not dead! He's – he's..." Dean's answer wasn't much softer than mine and he waved an arm, clearly trying to come up with an answer for what Dad could possibly be doing.

"He's what? He's hiding? He's _busy_?" Sam continued despite our protests.

"Sam, shut up!" I was starting to get so pissed off with his pessimism, that was my Dad too that he was saying that about, and I desperately needed Sam to be wrong, I needed Dad to be okay. "I've put out a hunter's APB, we'll find him!"

Sam turned to face me directly and I steeled myself for one of Sam's famous shouting matches with someone just as stubborn as he is, when we were both distracted by Dean's quiet voice, staring at the mobile in his hand. "Huh. I don't believe it."

"What?"

"It's, uh...It's a text message. It's coordinates."

My heart leapt at his words and I scurried across the room to the laptop. Co-ordinates could only be from Dad, which meant that he was okay. It also meant that he had another job for us, which meant that Sam would be pissed. But the important thing was that Dad was okay, and we'd have ended up working a job once we'd found one anyway, all his text had done was reassure us that he was okay and prevent us from enjoying any downtime between jobs.

"You think Dad was texting us?" Sam questioned.

"He's given us coordinates before." Dean said to him while leaning over my shoulder, holding the phone out so that I could see the screen to copy down the co-ordinates.

"The man can barely work a _toaster_ , Dean." Sam pointed out, irritably.

"Sam, it's good news! It means he's okay, or alive at least." Dean straightened, pocketing the phone.

"Well, was there a number on the caller ID?"

"Nah, it said 'unknown'." Dean admitted as I searched local papers for anything that sounded like our kind of thing.

"Well, where do the coordinates point?"

"That's the interesting part." I told them, "Rockford, Illinois."

"Ok, and that's interesting how?" Sam bitched.

"I checked the local Rockford paper. Take a look at this." I handed the laptop to Dean and he angled it so Sam could read over his shoulder as I summarised the article for them. "This cop, Walter Kelly, comes home from his shift, shoots his wife, then puts the gun in his mouth, blows his brains out. And earlier that night, Kelly and his partner responded to a call at the Roosevelt Asylum."

"Okay, I'm not following. What has this have to do with us?"

"Dad earmarked the same asylum in the journal. Let's see..." Dean handed the laptop back to me and grabbed the journal off the table, flicking through to find the right page. "Here. Seven unconfirmed sightings, two deaths – till last week at least. I think this is where he wants us to go."

Sam snorted, "This is a job... Dad wants us to work a job."

"Well, maybe we'll meet up with him? Maybe he's there?" Dean replied optimistically.

"Maybe he's not? I mean, he could be sending us there, by ourselves, to hunt this thing." Sam argued as I started looking up how long it would take to drive.

"Who cares! If he wants us there, it's good enough for me!"

"This doesn't strike you as weird? The texting? The coordinates?"

"Coming from Dad?" I pointed out, "Perfectly normal."

"Sam! Dad's tellin' us to go somewhere, we're _goin'_."

"It's about a day's drive." I shut the laptop and turned to my arguing brothers, "How about we get a good night's sleep and start out in the morning?"

Sam looked at the two of us, clearly recognising that he was outnumbered and sighed in defeat. "Fine. I get first shower."

* * *

I sat in the car outside 'The Old Terminal Pub', waiting for Sam and Dean to finish talking to Kelly's partner. We'd followed him here from the police station, recognising him from photos on Kelly's online profile. People have such relaxed security settings online; you can find anything about anyone these days.

I was using Sam's laptop, and it's miraculous WiFi, to dig a little into the history of the asylum when I was joined by a rather disgruntled Dean.

"What happened?"

"I was pretending to be a journalist wanting the story. The guy didn't want to talk so Sam shoved me out of the chair and pushed me across the room, tellin' me I should have more respect."

I snorted; I wish I could have seen Dean's face when that happened.

"He'd better get a decent story out of the guy, that's all I'm sayin'." Dean finished grumpily, slouching in his seat and sending a glare in the direction of the pub.

I reached across and patted him on the head, pulling the pain from his hip where he'd apparently collided with something. "There, there, mean old Sammy didn't mean to hurt your feelings." I told him in a disinterested tone, still staring at the computer screen in front of me.

"Ge' off." He pushed my hand away, and followed to tickle at my side; bastard knows all my weak spots. I squeaked and twisted away before gasping and reaching up to grip at my shoulder where my sudden movement had pulled at the stab wound. "Shit! Sorry, Ali. You okay?"

I gave him a tight smile, trying to get my breathing back under control and leaned into his side, accepting the hug he offered. We sat like that, both reading the old newspaper articles I'd found about the asylum until Sam walked out of the bar.

"Shoved me kinda hard in there, buddy boy." Dean greeted him as he opened the back door of the Impala.

"I had to sell it, didn't I? It's method acting."

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

"He means that he's mad about Dad and is taking it out on you." I supplied, somewhat unhelpfully. They both stopped, looking at me with exasperation. "What? Am I wrong?"

"What'd you find out from Gunderson?" Dean asked, choosing to ignore my input.

"So, Walter Kelly was a good cop. Head of his class, even-keeled, he had a bright future ahead of him."

"What about at home?"

"He and his wife had a few fights, like everybody, but he was mostly smooth sailing. They were even talking about having kids."

"Alright," Dean concluded, "so either Kelly had some deep-seated crazy waiting to bust out, or something else did it to him."

"What'd Gunderson tell you about the asylum?" I asked, wondering if there would be anything whispered among the locals that simply didn't make it to the Internet.

Sam snorted, giving us a smug grin, "A lot."

* * *

We found and checked into a motel to continue researching and to exchange what information we'd found so far. According to the cop Sam had spoken to, they'd followed some local kids into the South Wing. Gunderson had found the kids and escorted them out, given them a lecture and sent them home. There were plenty of local stories about the place being haunted and how staying overnight would send someone insane, loads of accounts of sightings and strange noises. Kids breaking in on a dare or whatever wasn't unusual and the night had been fairly routine for the two cops. They'd split up inside to search for the kids and had met up outside after the kids had left, and then they'd finished their shift and gone home. Where Kelly had shot and killed his wife and himself.

I'd taken a seat at the table, plugged the laptop in to charge and continued my research on the asylum. Dean, who was leaning over my shoulder to read the laptop screen, gave a low whistle, "Man. Electro-shock. Lobotomies. They did some twisted stuff to these people. Kinda like my man Jack in Cuckoo's Nest." He twisted his head around to grin maniacally at Sam, who ignored him. Dean's smile dropped and he straightened, turning to face our surly younger brother. "So. Whaddaya think? Ghosts possessing people?"

"Maybe." Sam murmured. "Or maybe it's more like Amityville, or the Smurl hunting."

"Spirits driving them insane. Kinda like my man Jack in The Shining." Dean gave the maniacal grin another try.

"Dean." We both focused on Sam, Dean cutting out the shenanigans. "When are we going to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?"

"About the fact Dad's not here."

"Oh. I see. How 'bout...never."

"I'm being serious, man." Sam stood from the bed, "He sent us here-"

"So am I, Sam." Dean cut him off. "Look, he sent us here, he obviously wants us here. We'll pick up the search later."

"It doesn't matter what he wants."

"See. That attitude? Right there?" Dean pointed a finger at Sam, "That is why I always get the extra cookie."

I snorted, and Sam gave Dean a bitchface before continuing, "Dad could be in trouble, we should be looking for him. We deserve some answers, Dean. I mean, this is our family we're talking about."

"I understand that, Sam, but he's given us an order."

"So what, we gotta always follow Dad's orders?"

"Of course we do, Sam. Because Dad might be a pretty crappy dad, but he's an excellent commander; so if he gives us an order, we follow it." I held eye contact until Sam looked away, bitchface in full force, but no longer voicing his frustrations.

* * *

The next morning we headed over to the asylum to check it out. It was an imposing building, multi-storied with large, paned glass windows, barred and boarded up at the lower levels, and 'keep out' signs everywhere. The sign on the chain link fence stated that the building was condemned and unsafe to enter.

The boys jumped the fence anyway.

"I'll just wait here then." With the injury to my shoulder I wouldn't be able to climb the fence.

My brothers smirked at me, Dean gave a jaunty little wave and they disappeared into the building. I sighed, shaking my head and returning to the car.

There wasn't much more history to look into on the asylum. It was built in 1875 to ease overcrowding in other mental health facilities, and named for Dr Henry Roosevelt, who played an important role in establishing the facility. The North and South wings were added to the original building in the 1900's, and the South wing was high security, used to house the criminally insane.

In 1964 the patients in the South Wing rioted, deaths included both patients and staff and the asylum was subsequently closed and the remaining patients moved to other facilities. I'd researched and found lists of people who'd died or simply never been found after the riot. Some were presumed dead, but the bodies had never been recovered; the patients must have stuffed the bodies someplace hidden.

A bunch of violent deaths and unrecovered bodies, of people who were quite possibly criminally insane even before they died. Death seems to send most ghosts a bit cuckoo. This would be even more dangerous than most of the other ghosts we'd dealt with in the past.

Then in 1972 three teenagers broke into the South Wing and only one survived. This was the old newspaper article which had made its way into Dad's journal. The way the survivor told it, one of his friends went nuts and started lighting up the place.

Salt rounds in the shot guns, and iron knives would be the order of the day, while trying to find the bodies the police were unable to and then salt and burn them. Simple. Except for the homicidal ghosts.

The boys weren't gone long, only about twenty minutes before they were climbing back over the fence like they were part monkey. If Darwin had been able to present those two climbing fences as evidence that man was descended from ape, no one would have doubted him.

"No one home." Dean announced, unlocking the car I'd been standing against and shivering for the whole time they'd been gone. "Looks like we're gonna have to come back after dark if we wanna see any action."

"Given we're probably dealing with the ghosts of homicidal maniacs," I pointed out, "maybe we should be searching for the bodies during the day?"

"If the police couldn't find the bodies, we won't be able to." Sam argued, settling into the passenger seat. "Perhaps the ghosts will give some indication where we should be looking."

"'Casper the friendly ghost' actually being friendly?" Dean snorted. "That'd be a first."

* * *

Over dinner we discussed Sanford Ellicott, who had been chief of staff and whose body was one of those never recovered. We discussed the possibility that since he'd been in charge of basically torturing the patients, his spirit may be a central figure in the haunting of the asylum today. Most of the other spirits would probably hold a grudge, and it was very likely that he'd been murdered by some of his previous patients during the riot.

We also discussed the possibility of me coming along. Sam suggested that if I could get over the fence without assistance I could come. Dean must have recognised the look of determination on my face, because he quickly put a stop to that, telling me that injured people have no business hunting anything.

We argued for a while, I don't like them going off into danger when I can't keep an eye on them and make sure they're safe, but in the end I knew Dean was right. My arm would hold me back, make me a liability in a fight, and looking after me would mean that the boys would be more likely to get hurt.

I reluctantly agreed to sit this one out, in the car, as close as I could get. Just in case anything happened.

* * *

Night fell and the boys took the duffel I'd packed with shotguns and rock salt rounds, an iron crowbar, a pack or two of salt, a tin of kerosene and a lighter and a book of matches. What can I say? I like to be prepared.

The boys climbed the fence and I tossed the bag over to them, the video camera Sam wanted was shoved through a hole in the fence. They assured me that they'd be careful and then disappeared into the dark asylum. I retreated to the car, sitting in the comfort and warmth, I'd give them until dawn, then if they weren't back I would go in after them, stab wound or no. For now I watched the lights occasionally flicker through the windows of the South Wing as they moved through the building.

After half an hour the last of the warmth had faded from the car. I pulled a spare jacket from the boot and walked south, along the outside of the building, hugging myself in the cold night air and straining my ears to hear anything that might be happening inside the old building. The torchlight had still been on the ground floor the last time I'd seen a glimmer, and it didn't take long to catch up with the boys.

I could hear the sound of a girl screaming; Sam, Dean and another male voice I didn't recognise shouting. The girl, Kat, had apparently been separated, "locked inside" by a ghost, I listened carefully as Sam told her to face the ghost; that they wanted to communicate, not to hurt her. Then all was quiet for a moment and I pressed as close to the fence as I could, trying desperately to hear what was happening.

"It whispered in my ear, 137." They were speaking normal volume now, and the ground floor was elevated quite a bit above the ground just here, the voices only barely reaching me.

"Room number." That sounded like both boys speaking at once, but I was unable to make out the words any more after that.

Torchlight flashed in windows again shortly after, going in two separate directions. I though it likely that my brothers would have split up, one guiding the civilians to safety, the other looking for room 137. And if I knew Dean, then he'd have sent Sam on the safer task, guiding the civilians out. I followed the light that was moving further into the building. It rose one floor and moved back along the corridor above before there was a scrapping noise and the light entered a room close above the main entrance. The light flashed through the broken window.

In the corridor below, the light had come to a stop, flashing around for some time in the same location. I watched through the barred windows, listening to the quiet murmur of voices, but unable to distinguish the words.

In contrast, the broken window of the room Dean was apparently searching allowed me to hear quite clearly the sounds of him moving around the room, opening and closing filing cabinets and then a sort of wooden cracking sound before Dean's smug voice stated, "This is why I get paid the big bucks."

I raised an eyebrow; no one pays us anything to do this, but I held my tongue, not wanting to startle my brother. There was the sound of a book dropping to a table top, then the scrape of a chair being pulled up and the sound of pages turning before Dean spoke again. "Well, all work and no play makes Dr Ellicott a _very_ dull boy."

The light in the corridor below started moving again, searching no doubt for a way out, it moved through the corridor, shining out of each and every window that it passed. There were very few ways out of the building, I guess fire exits weren't so important to architects in the 19th century, and this building had been designed to keep people in. I shadowed the light as it moved, looking for doors, or even escapable windows on the outside of the building, but there was nothing.

Sam's light returned to where it had stopped before and I heard voices again, though I couldn't make out the words, then Sam's phone rang. He spoke quickly and then the light departed again. The silence in the room above was broken as Dean stood, the light swung around the room again and departed, moving back along the corridor the way he'd come. I pulled my phone from my pocket, dialling Sam's number.

It rang through to the voice mail, though I hadn't heard the phone ringing inside the building. I tried Dean, same result. Something was blocking my calls.

Sam's light disappeared through a doorway, I got a glimpse of it through a window that was level with the ground and then it moved out of sight. Sam was in the basement, all alone, for I could still hear voices in the darkness where Sam had left them, and Dean's light was descending the staircase at the far end of the South Wing.

I weighed my options, my brothers were almost certainly in trouble, and I had no way of contacting them. I could struggle my way over the fence, but if the civilians couldn't get out, then the chances that I'd be able to get in were slim. I could try shouting, but my hearing was superior to a human's and I could only just hear them shouting inside, the chances that they'd be able to hear me shout were pretty low. Dean might have heard me if he was still in the room with the broken window, but that opportunity had passed and wasn't likely to reoccur.

In summary, I was utterly useless. There was nothing I could do to assist my brothers at this point; I could only watch as Dean's light approached the spot in the darkness where voices could still just be heard. A shot rang out, followed by voices.

"Damn it, damn it, don't shoot! It's me!"

"Sorry! Sorry." The girl's voice replied, after that the voices sunk back in volume and I couldn't make out the words any more.

Then Dean's light followed Sam's, descending into the basement and out of my sight.

Silence followed, tense and awful; broken occasionally by some creature in the woods behind me, far behind me, even the animals knew to avoid this place. It really makes you wonder how humans as a species have survived. Animals know to stay away from the ghosts, but humans dare each other to spend a night with them; how are they not all dead yet?

A gunshot echoed faintly from the building in front of me and I tensed; my muscles prepared for fight or flight despite there being nothing I could do.

There was more silence, and more, and more, until finally the lights reappeared in the little basement window and steadily climbed the stairs back to the ground floor. I followed them along the corridor until they paused and announced their presence before rounding the corner to join the two civilians.

The lights moved no further, I waited for a few moments, but when the lights had held steady for some time, as if the people holding them weren't moving at all, I gave Dean's phone another try.

It rang, and this time I could hear the ringing from inside the building. The light didn't move, but Dean answered his phone.

"Ali?"

"Dean! Are you okay? And Sam? What happened? I heard a gunshot. Is it over? Why aren't you coming outside?"

"Woah, hold up there." He laughed, "One question at a time. We found Ellicott and… dealt with him, but the doors are still locked, anything you can do about finding us another way out?"

"I can't see anything from out here, not unless you fancy jumping out of an upstairs window." I told him, casting my eyes over the building again, and not seeing any door magically appearing, nor the bars disappearing from the windows.

"Any idea why the doors are locked?" Sam's voice asked over the phone.

"It might be the expectations of the rest of the ghosts." I told them, "They're used to there being no way out, so while they're up and about, there is no way out. If it's still sealed at dawn I'll come bust you out."

"Awesome." Dean's slightly petulant tone made me smile.

"Since we seem to have some time on our hands, wanna back brief me? I can start writing the report." By which I meant, tell me what happened and I'll write it in the journal, but if I'm on speaker and the civilians are listening in, it's better to sound professional, it gives them more faith in us.

"The riot in '64, the patients were rioting against Dr Ellicott. I found his log book. Apparently he was experimenting on his patients, awful stuff. Makes lobotomies look like a coupla aspirin. Dr Feelgood was working on some sort of, like, extreme rage therapy. He thought that if he could get his patients to vent their anger then they would be cured of it. Instead it only made them worse and worse and angrier and angrier."

"So, his spirit was doing the same thing? To the cop? To the kids in the seventies, making them so angry they become homicidal?" I filled in as Dean paused for breath.

"Yeah, to Sammy here too."

"What?!"

"I'm fine. Now."

"The log book said he had a hidden procedure room down in the basement where he'd work on his patients." Dean continued, though I'd be giving Sam a thorough check once he was close enough. "Sam got a phone call, supposedly from me, which lured him down to the basement, and Ellicott did a little experimenting on him. When I went after him I found weird Sam who said a bunch of stuff and shot me-"

"Are you okay"

"I'll be fine, it was just rock salt." I bet it stung like a bitch though, I wish I was close enough to comfort my brother. "So, I knocked him out and found Ellicott. Sam was normal when he woke up."

"Is Sam okay?" Dean's got one hell of a right hook; Sam must be feeling pretty sorry for himself right now.

"I'll be fine, Ali."

We chatted for a while longer until Dean's phone battery started to die, and then we hung up and I retreated to the car until daybreak.

* * *

With dawn came freedom and the boys were finally able to join me outside the asylum.

We sent the two civilians on their way, with a caution to stay away from haunted places in future and turned to the Impala, our thoughts turning to the motel and warm beds.

"Hey, Dean?" Sam called quietly, pausing before getting into the car. Dean turned to look at him. "I'm sorry, man. I said some awful things back there."

"You remember all that?"

"Yeah. It's like I couldn't control it. But I didn't mean it, any of it."

"You didn't, huh?"

"What happened?"

Sam sighed, turning to me and shifting from foot to foot. "I said a whole bunch of hurtful things about Dad, and Dean, mostly Dean…" His voice faded to silence, his eyes fixed on the ground.

"But you didn't mean it, right?"

"No, of course not! Do we need to talk about this?"

"No." Dean opened his door and settled into the driver's seat. "I'm not really in the sharing and caring kinda mood. I just wanna get some sleep."

We made it back to our crappy motel room and Dean pretty much collapsed into bed. I joined him after seeing to Sam, whose jaw was probably going to bruise and who was still feeling guilt over whatever had been said while he was under Ellicott's influence.

I lay down next to Dean, allowing myself to be ensnared in a hug, Dean always cuddles in his sleep, pillows, me, even Sam if he gets too close, all are fair game while Dean's unconscious. Sam took his spot on the other bed and lay staring at the ceiling, the bitter tang of his guilt still hanging in the air.

"Do you want to talk about it, Sammy?" I kept my voice quiet so as not to disturb Dean.

"I called him pathetic." His voice was quiet in the darkened room, but filled with a sort of horrified disgust at his own words, "I blamed him for not finding Dad, I called him a "good little soldier" incapable of having his own thoughts."

"He's not mad at you, Sammy." I tried to reassure him, "You weren't exactly in control. Words spoken in anger very rarely ring true once the anger has passed, so you lashed out and the anger made you use words as weapons. Dean knows you didn't mean it, he knows you love him; you don't want to hurt him."

"I tried to kill him, Ali." His face scrunched up in distress, "He handed me his pistol and I pointed it at his face and pulled the trigger. It wasn't loaded, but I didn't know that."

"He's already forgiven you."

"But, Ali-"

"Sam. If anyone else had tried to kill him, I wouldn't have let them live to see the dawn. But it was you. Dean and I both know that you love him just as much as I do. We've both forgiven you. It's okay; you can forgive yourself."

Sam was silent after that, and I said no more. I had been truthful, Dean had forgiven the offence as soon as Sam had made it, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt. The pain of what Sam had said, things I suspected Dean already thought about himself to some degree, would linger for some time, and I wouldn't be surprised if watching his baby brother point a gun at him and pull the trigger would give him nightmares. He claims he doesn't have nightmares, and for the most part it's true, but whenever Sam or I get hurt, whenever something threatens our family, Dean will be restless at night for weeks afterwards, tossing and turning, sometimes jerking awake, staring around the room to convince himself that everyone was okay, before he could return to slumber.

The room was quiet, Dean's breathing deep and regular in my ear, I was glad that, as much as getting shot had hurt, it hadn't done any real damage. The quiet was broken by the ringing of Dean's phone. Dean didn't move, his breathing remaining the same, so I reached for the phone on the bedside table, and hissed in pain as the movement pulled at the stitches in my shoulder.

Sam rolled over, picking up the phone and flipping it open before holding it to his ear. "Hello." His eyes went wide and he sat straight up in bed, "Dad?"

* * *

 **AN: In this episode, when Sam shot Dean with the rock salt, Dean was blasted backwards through the door to the secret lab; this is not true to physics. Momentum is mass multiplied by velocity squared, and while the shot would have a very high velocity, it's mass is very low, when it hits a person the much higher mass means that the velocity imparted to the body is negligible; being shot would not blast a body backwards. It's possible that Dean was sent through the door by his muscles reaction to the pain pushing him away from the source, but it wasn't the shot that pushed him. Similarly in every Hollywood film where that happens, they are ignoring the laws of physics.**


	12. Scarecrow

"Sam, is that you?" Dad's voice was small, coming from the phone pressed to Sam's ear, but still recognisable.

Sam sat bolt upright in bed, "Dad? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine."

Sam's voice sounded younger than his twenty two years, "We've been looking for you everywhere. We didn't know where you were, if you were okay."

"Sammy, I'm all right. What about you, Dean and Ali?" Dean stirred on the bed behind me, woken by Sam talking.

"We're fine. Dad, where are you?" Dean sat up, focusing on Sam.

"Sorry, kiddo, I can't tell you that."

"What? Why not?"

"Is that Dad?" Dean questioned, reaching for the shirt I'd ordered him to remove so I could check his injuries before bed.

"Look, I know this is hard for you to understand." Dad sounded frustrated. "You're just gonna have to trust me on this."

"You're after it, aren't you? The thing that killed Mum."

"Yeah. It's a demon, Sam."

"A demon? You know for sure?"

"A demon?" asked Dean, "What's he saying?"

"I do." Then Dad's voice dropped, becoming gentle, "Listen, Sammy, I, uh…I also know what happened to your girlfriend. I'm so sorry. I would've done anything to protect you from that."

"You know where it is?" Sam pressed, grief rising at Dad's words and being forcibly pushed away.

"Yeah, I think I'm finally closing in on it."

"Let us help."

"You can't." Dad sounded insistent now. "You can't be any part of it."

"Why not?" _Oh boy, Sam's gearing up for a fight._

"Give me the phone." Dean reached over me, where I was still laying on my side in the bed beside him, still feeding on the pain from his chest wound.

"Listen, Sammy, that's why I'm calling. You kids, you gotta stop looking for me. Alright, now, I need you to write down these names."

"Names? What names, Dad—talk to me, tell me what's going on."

"Look, we don't have time for this. This is bigger than you think, they're everywhere. Even us talking right now, it's not safe."

"No. Alright? No way."

"Give me the phone." Sam continued to ignore Dean.

"I have given you an order. Now, you stop following me, and you do your job. You understand me? Now, take down these names."

Dean plucked the phone from Sam's hand, holding it up to his own ear. "Dad, it's me. Where are you?"

"I can't say and you gotta stop looking, it's not safe, you hear?"

Dean's posture straightened a little in response to Dad's tone, clearly bristling but obedient, unlike Sam. "Yeah, okay."

"Good." Dad growled, "Now have you got a pen? Take down these names."

Dean reached over me, jostling my shoulder slightly as he grabbed the motel notepad off the bedside table. "Uh, yeah, I got a pen. What are their names?"

* * *

"Alright," Sam stated irritably from the driver's seat of the Impala, "so, the names Dad gave us, they're all couples?"

"Three different couples." Dean confirmed, leafing through the print outs. "All went missing."

"And they're all from different towns? Different states?"

"That's right." I told him, leaning over Dean's shoulder to look at the pages. "You got Washington, New York, Colorado. Each couple took a road trip cross-country. None of them arrived at their destination, and none of them were ever heard from again."

"Well, it's a big country." Sam pointed out in exasperation. "They could've disappeared anywhere."

"Yeah, could've." Dean argued, "But each one's route took 'em to the same part of Indiana. Always on the second week of April. One year after another after another."

There was a pause, "This is the second week of April."

"Yep."

"So, Dad is sending us to Indiana to go hunting for something before another couple vanishes?" Sam sounded like he was working up to another hissy fit over Dad.

"Yahtzee." Dean was oblivious, still leafing through the pages in his lap. "Can you imagine putting together a pattern like this? All the different obits Dad had to go through? The man's a master." He looked up as Sam pulled the car over to the side of the road. "What are you doing?"

"We're not going to Indiana." Sam stated flatly.

I dropped my forehead to the back of the seat, _here we go._ "We're not?" I prompted.

"No. We're going to California. Dad called from a payphone. Sacramento area code."

"Sam." Dean sounded like I felt; tired of fighting with Sam over this.

"Dean, if this demon killed Mum and Jess, and Dad's closing in, we've gotta be there." Sam insisted, "We've gotta help."

"Dad doesn't want our help." Dean pointed out.

"I don't care."

"He's given us an order."

"I don't care." Sam repeated. "We don't always have to do what he says."

"Sam, Dad is asking us to work jobs, to save lives, it's important." My voice was slightly muffled by the seat back I was still resting my head on.

"Alright, I understand, believe me, I understand. But I'm talking one week here, to get answers. To get revenge."

I looked up in concern at Sam's words, studying the side of his face with a frown as Dean continued to try to reason with him. "Alright, look, I know how you feel."

"Do you?" Sam bite out, real venom in his tone. "How old were you when Mum died? Four? Jess died six months ago. How the hell would you know how I feel?"

"Dad said it wasn't safe." I spoke gently, trying not to upset my baby brother any further. "For any of us. I mean, he obviously knows something that we don't, so if he says to stay away, we stay away."

Sam looked between the two of us with a face that spoke of frustrated incredulity. "I don't understand the blind faith you have in the man. I mean, it's like you two don't even question him."

"Yeah, it's called being a good son!" Dean exclaimed, angry now, hurt by Sam's accusations about Mum.

Sam didn't reply, he just got out of the car, opened the boot and started unloading his bags. Dean and I followed.

"You're a selfish bastard, you know that? You just do whatever you want. Don't care what anybody thinks." Dean ranted.

"That's what you really think?"

"Yes, it is."

"Well, then this selfish bastard is going to California." Sam pulled his backpack onto his back and walked away, I watched him go, my heart aching at seeing Sammy leaving us again.

"Come on, you're not serious." Dean called after him.

"I am serious."

"It's the middle of the night! Hey, I'm taking off, I will leave your ass, you hear me?" Sam stopped at Dean's words, turning back to face us.

"That's what I want you to do." They stared at each other for a moment, as I looked back and forth between them, realising that I would have to choose a path.

"Goodbye, Sam." Dean closed the boot turning away to get into the driver's seat. I caught his sleeve forcing him to turn back to me.

"I swear, Dean, you leave me behind, there will be hell to pay." I pointed a finger at him, maintaining eye contact until he rolled his eyes and nodded at me, and then I ran after Sam, calling to him to stop.

He turned to face me, "You comin' with?"

"No, Sam, I'm going to Indiana. But you were leaving without a hug." I held up my arms like a toddler wanting to be picked up and Sam's face relaxed into a genuine smile. He stepped forward, wrapping his arms around me, carefully below my stab wound, and picking me up. "You stay in touch." I whispered in his ear. "And you be careful, remember what Dad said about it not being safe and you be _so_ careful."

He nodded, "I will, Ali."

"And you phone us every day."

"Yeah, I promise." I could feel his smile against my cheek.

"Love you, Sammy." I kissed his cheek.

"Love you too." He returned the kiss before giving one last squeeze and dropping me to the ground. I gave him a sad smile and turned to return to Dean, who was leaning against the side of the Impala waiting for me.

"Ali!" Sam called after me, and I turned back to face him. "What made you choose Dean?" his voice was quiet, not quite hiding the hurt.

"I didn't choose a side, Sam, I chose a course of action; I chose to follow Dad's orders." I gave him another small smile, "We'll catch you later, Sammy."

We each lifted a hand in a half-hearted wave and turned away, going our separate ways for now.

"Thought you'd go with him." Dean commented as we settled into the car.

"Sammy's a big boy now, he can look after himself." I told him, reaching out to change the tape to Lynyrd Skynyrd. "Besides, we'll deal with whatever's in Indiana and meet up with him in Cali. The amount of time a bus will take to get there, we might even get there first."

* * *

It had just finished raining when we pulled into Burkitsville, Indiana. The grass shone with water droplets and puddles on the road reflected the trees and the houses. Dean pulled over to the side of the road in what passed for the town center in this sleepy little place; he pulled his phone from his pocket, scrolling through the contacts before stopping.

"You should call," I told him, "apologise for some of the shit you said and remind him to call us once he finds Dad." Dean scowled at me, and shoved the phone back in his pocket. He got out of the car and slammed the door.

I hurried after him, catching up as he approached a man sitting in a chair on the porch of 'Scotty's Café', catching hold of his hand as we both gave the man slightly forced smiles. "Let me guess," Dean deliberately looked up at the sign of the café, "Scotty."

Scotty also turned, regarding the sign for a moment before confirming Dean's assumption with a brief "Yep."

"Hi, my name's John Bonham."

"Isn't that the drummer for Led Zeppelin?"

"Wow." Dean was taken aback; people didn't often question the aliases we used. "Good. Classic rock fan."

"What can I do for you, John?"

Dean dropped my hand and pulled the missing posters for the couple who disappeared last year, Holly and Vince Parker, from his pocket, handing them to Scotty. "I was wondering if, uh, you'd seen these people by chance."

Scotty gave them a quick look before responding. "Nope. Who are they?"

"Friends of ours." I supplied. "They went missing about a year ago. They passed through somewhere around here, and we've already asked around Scottsburg and Salem—"

"Sorry." He handed the posters back to Dean. "We don't get many strangers around here."

"Scotty, you've got a smile that lights up a room, anybody ever tell you that?" Scotty gave him a strange look and I rolled my eyes at Dean's sarcasm.

"Come on, Honey," I tugged on his arm, pulling him away from the café, "We'll ask a few more places then try the next town. We'll find them."

Dean raised his eyebrows at me, but behind him Scotty was disappearing into his café with a calculating look on his face.

Dean waited until we were out of earshot before leaning in to question me, "You're calling me 'Honey' now?"

"It's couples, Dean" I kept my voice low as we approached Jorgeson General Store. "Every year it's a couple."

"You're using us as bait!" He appeared thoughtful for a minute, then, "I'm not kissing you."

"Thank god for that." I retorted as we entered the store, drawing a chuckle from Dean before we went through a similar song and dance with the couple who owned the store as we had with Scotty.

"You sure they didn't stop for gas or something?" Dean pressed.

The man showed the pictures to his wife, who shook her head before he turned back to us. "Nope, don't remember 'em. You said they were friends of yours?"

"That's right." Dean confirmed.

"Did the guy have a tattoo?" asked a girl of about twenty, coming down the stairs with a pile of boxes in her hands.

"Yes, he did." Dean held the pictures out for the girl to see as she placed her load on the counter.

"You remember?" She asked the older couple. "They were just married."

The man took the poster from her hand, frowning at it. "You're right. They did stop for gas. Weren't here more than ten minutes."

"You remember anything else?" I asked.

"I told 'em how to get back to the Interstate. They left town." The man handed the poster back.

"Could you point us in that same direction?"

"Sure." The man smiled, "I'll draw a quick map."

He bustled around, finding paper and pencil from behind the counter while his wife and the younger girl disappeared. "Take Laskey straight out of town." A detailed map started to appear on the paper, agonisingly slowly, complete with many road junctions, each road labelled with its name. "And then you're going to turn right on Orchard Road." The two roads we were interested in were the only ones that were complete, every other road ended as a stump. It wasn't a bad depiction of what we would see as we were driving, but it took a long time to draw. Trees were being added to the orchard as my sensitive ears picked up the sound of a car bonnet being shut, it sounded like Baby's.

"Thanks, man." Dean took the map and we left, with fake smiles and small waves.

He handed me the map as we got into the car, "Pretty simple," he grumbled. "Coulda just told us without drawing it out like that."

He turned the key and Baby made a choking sound, then a whirring sound, then fell silent. Dean looked at her in horror. "But then his wife wouldn't have had time to sabotage our car." I whispered in realisation, watching Dean carefully.

He turned to face me with an almost murderous look in his eye. "They hurt my Baby?"

"Dean, this is a good thing," I winced as soon as I said it, knowing what the reaction would be, but it was too late to take it back.

"Good!?"

"It means they took the bait." I hurried on. "They've trapped us here for whatever reason. Now we pretend to know nothing about cars and go back in there asking them to fix it-"

"No!" Dean seemed aghast. "They've already tampered with her, and you want to _ask_ them to do _more_ damage?"

"We can fix whatever they do, Dean; it's not like we haven't repaired her before."

"Ali…" He sounded as if he was in pain.

"Dean, come on," I pleaded, "wouldn't you rather it was us than some innocent civilians?"

"Oh, come on." He flopped back into his seat. "Really?"

I left Dean sulking in the car as I returned to the general store to speak to the younger girl who was now behind the counter. I complained that we'd only recently had the car back from the garage and she promised me that her uncle could take a look at it. She called him through and he put on a good pretense at being surprised to see me, I might even have been fooled by it if I hadn't known better. I led him outside, where Dean had the bonnet open and was scowling at the engine.

The man bent over, peering into the engine bay. I could see over his shoulder that the connection between the battery and the spark plugs had been unplugged, it wouldn't take a moment to fix, but I swallowed the urge to do so and put on a worried voice, "Do you think you can fix it?"

"Yes, I'd say so. Might take a while though." He straightened, giving us a smile, "Why don't you folks head over to the café while you wait. I should have you up and running by sundown."

I gave him a relieved smile and pulled Dean's hand into mine, squeezing tightly to remind him to play his part. "That sounds great, you're so kind." Dean mumbled something under his breath that sounded like he disagreed with me and I tugged him away. Then I turned back, "Oh, just a thought, how far is it to this orchard? Since we're here all day it might make a nice romantic stroll." I smiled fondly at Dean, and the look he gave me in return promised my impending demise.

"It's about half a mile," The man answered, turning back to the Impala, "not really the weather for it though."

"Awesome, thanks." I trilled before pulling Dean after me towards the café. I'd spotted a sign boasting the best pie in the county and Dean needed some cheering up.

Forty five minutes later Dean was still scowling, despite having devoured two very generous portions of apple pie, and we were far enough from the town on our way down the road to be able to speak freely.

"Dean…"

"How could you do that?" His voice was deeper when he was angry, "Offer her up like that? Doesn't matter that we can fix her, Ali; you betrayed her."

"You realise that she's your car, not your lover, don't you?" I asked dryly, and watched him blush. "So," I changed the topic, hoping that Dean would shut up about it; it's not as if I didn't feel bad enough already. "The locals give directions down this way, and sabotage the car, but there's been no effort to restrain us, and they say we can leave at sundown. I'd say there's something out this way that they want us to be here after dark for."

"Bastards didn't have to mess with my car though." He mumbled, and I sighed; it didn't look like I was going to be forgiven anytime soon. "Man and a woman, once a year, after dark and the locals are in on it. Does that sound sacrificial to you?"

"Yeah; perhaps something to do with a pagan festival? The Nordic spring blót is around this time." A blót is a sacrifice to the Norse gods, typically Odin, and the spring blót was especially important to ensure that winter ended and the gods brought summer back to the land. Most sacrifices would be cows, horses or pigs, but humans wasn't unheard of, and a man and a woman sounded like a fertility ritual; not surprising given all the associations between fertility and spring.

Dean hummed as we approached the orchard. The man at the general store had been right about the weather. I huddled further into my jacket, watching the mist creep between the trees that were only just beginning to show signs of new leaves. The place had an eerie, abandoned feel, and sounds didn't seem to travel through the mist.

A whistling noise sounded from Dean's pocket, "What the hell?" He pulled the EMF meter from his pocket, the lights on its top showing a fluctuating reading. We exchanged a look, then Dean switched the meter off, returning it to his pocket and we entered the orchard.

It was clearly a working orchard, the apple trees were well established and looked after, there was equipment such as ladders and buckets scattered about. We walked between the trees, not talking. The silence felt oppressive. Eventually we came to a scarecrow, raised high on a pole among the treetops.

"Dude, you're fugly." Dean told it, it offered no response.

Its face seemed to be sewn crudely together from several pieces of some kind of pale leather, its eyes were deep, empty sockets and it had neither nose nor mouth. It had scraggly grey hair and wore a brimmed hat and a long coat. It held a sickle in its right hand. Dean took a nearby ladder and placed it in front of the scarecrow; he climbed to the top, eye level with the scarecrow. He reached out, moving the scarecrow's sleeve to reveal the arm beneath. It was made of sewn together leather, like the face, but there was a mark on its arm; I tilted my head, stepping forward to get a better look as Dean pulled out the missing posters and compared the mark on its arm to something in the picture. "Nice tat."

* * *

"You're back." The girl from the general store smiled brightly at us as we returned to town.

"Never left." I smiled back at her, swinging Dean's hand back and forth.

"Not going far without my Baby." Dean grumbled beside me, before putting on a polite face and peering at the name necklace around the girl's neck. "So, Emily, you grew up here?"

She shook her head a little sadly, "I came here when I was thirteen. I lost my parents. Car accident. My aunt and uncle took me in."

"They're nice people." I stated, reflecting that Dean's opinion on them was probably a little different.

"Everybody's nice here." Emily assured us.

"So, what, it's the, uh, perfect little town?" The sarcasm was barely veiled in his voice and I squeezed his hand in warning.

"Well, you know, it's the boonies." She shrugged. "But I love it. I mean, the towns around us, people are losing their homes, their farms. But here, it's almost like we're blessed." _Interesting._ Dean and I glanced at each other, silently confirming our sacrifice theory.

"Hey, you been out to the orchard?" I asked her, shuddering slightly, "You seen that scarecrow?"

"Yeah, it creeps me out." She shuddered right along with me, causing Dean to laugh a little.

"Whose is it?" He asked.

"I don't know. It's just always been there."

We excused ourselves and returned to the café, heads together, sappy smiles in place and voices lowered; the tone of our conversation a sharp juxtaposition to the looks on our faces.

"So, we got a scarecrow made out of the skins of the previous victims, and a town that is 'blessed'. Definitely something sacrificial."

"Any idea how we kill it? You know, before we get sacrificed tonight?"

"Umm…"

"Awesome."

Back in the café, Scotty seemed pleased to see us again, he made some noise about it being good to have a customer who properly appreciated the pie, and gave us a spiel about how the town was famous for their apples. Then he insisted that the pie was on the house, the fresh apple juice too.

We sat for a while, munching on pie, it really was very good, and sipping the apple juice, while I racked my brain for how to kill a god. Furthermore, an unknown god. Various methods are effective against various different gods, so who were we dealing with, and how do we kill them specifically?

Scotty came to refill our drinks, and I excused myself to go to the restroom, tapping Dean's shoulder as I left, a signal that he should keep Scotty busy. Once I was safely ensconced in the ladies room, I phoned Sam.

"Hey, Sam, what do you know about Pagan gods? And scarecrow effigies?"

"What makes you say that?"

"The annual cycle of the killings, and the fact that the victims are always a man and a woman. Like some kind of fertility right. And you should see the locals. The way they're treating us. Fattenin' us up like a Christmas turkey. All the apple pie you can eat, Dean's in heaven."

"The last meal." Sam realised, "Given to sacrificial victims."

"Yeah, so I'm thinking a ritual sacrifice to appease some Pagan god." I kept my voice low, in case of eavesdroppers.

"And the scarecrow effigy?"

"Made from the skins of the victims. And for another year, the crops won't wilt, and disease won't spread."

"Do you know which god you're dealing with?"

"No, not yet."

"Well, you figure out what it is, you can figure out a way to kill it."

"Well, that's actually why I'm phoning you. Dean and I are being sacrificed at sundown, find out what you can and phone me before then." Footsteps outside the bathroom drew my attention.

"Sundown? Ali-" I cut Sam off as I hung up the phone and flushed the unused toilet, washing my hands and smiling at Scotty as I returned to the table.

* * *

We were stuffed by the time the man from the general store came by to tell us that the car was fixed. We did our best to smile and seem grateful, pleased to be on our way again. It was difficult though, this man had played around with Baby, probably setting her up to breakdown as we were leaving town, and planned to sacrifice us to a Pagan god. Also, to top it all off, Sam had never phoned me back.

We drove out of town, following the directions given and, sure enough, the car stopped just outside the orchard. Dean looked at me, popping the hood and getting out. The look in his eye told me that I'd had a terrible idea, using ourselves at bait, that I'd betrayed both Baby and him, allowing strangers to work on her and mess her up, and that I'd best sleep with one eye open.

I've seen Dean furious, and this isn't it, but it isn't far off.

I got out as well, coming around to shine a torch into the engine bay. "Do you think we should go into the orchard? Go find that scarecrow?"

"Why?" Dean growled at me, reaching forwards to start checking electrical connections. "We still don't know how to kill it."

I pulled my phone from my pocket, thinking to phone Sam for an update. "No bars." I put it back into my pocket. "We could always try an assortment of guns and knives and see if we get lucky?"

Dean gave me a slightly incredulous look. "Or we could fix up Baby and get out of town, come back in the morning."

I hooked the torch onto the bonnet, angling it so that the light shone into the engine bay. I started rooting around, trying to diagnose the fault. There hadn't been any strange noises, she'd been running fine, but had suddenly died; as if she were out of fuel. I ducked back into the car, checking the fuel gauge, which read full, and then I moved over to the fuel tank at the back of the car. Laying on the ground I reached under the car and rapped my knuckles on the tank, it rang hollow and empty.

"Found the problem, Dean." I stated, pulling myself to my feet. "We're out of fuel."

"Are you sure?" He stuck his head into the car, checking the same gauge I'd looked at.

"Yeah, she's empty." I dusted off my clothes and opened the boot, pulling open the secret armoury and grabbing various different knives; silver, iron, steel, bronze, gold, one of everything we had. I arranged them in my waistband and then started loading a magazine with an assortment of different 9mm rounds.

Dean meanwhile pulled the jack from the boot and positioned it under the rear of the car. He started lifting the car to get a better look at the underside, a second torch on the ground beside him. I crouched down and took a cursory glance at the underside of the vehicle. There was no obvious damage, chances were that they'd drained the tank and broken the gauge to keep it reading full.

"I'll head back to town. See if I can't recover some of our fuel." I told my brother, "You check they didn't do anything worse and we can get going when I get back."

With admonitions to be careful we parted ways and I headed directly towards the town, through the orchard.

"Wow." I murmured to myself as I walked along, a shotgun held to my uninjured shoulder. "And I thought this place was creepy in the daylight."

I'd left the torches with Dean; I didn't want to advertise exactly where I was. And besides, I can see well in the dark, better than any human. The mist of the day had settled down into dew, soaking the bottoms of my jeans, and early spring leaves shifted in the light breeze, making a soft rustling which helped to disguise the sound of footsteps through the grass below. Shadows shifted as I moved through the trees, all my senses alert for the probable threat.

I could feel eyes on me, as I moved further into the orchard, far enough now that I could no longer hear Dean, nor see the light of his torches. Something moved in the corner of my eye and I spun, but could see nothing. I turned a slow 360° and froze. The pole that the scarecrow had hung from when Dean and I had investigated the orchard that afternoon was empty.

I stood still, feeling the eyes on me, listening to the wind whistling in the treetops and my pulse rushing in my ears. I could keep going, get the fuel and get back, maybe. Or I could go back to Dean empty-handed, maybe. Or I could hunt the scarecrow which was hunting me and hope that one of my knives or bullets would be the right one.

I started to move back in the direction of Dean, the car, and safety. I could feel the eyes on me every step of the way, but I could see nothing moving amongst the trees.

After some time the lights came back into view and I made a break for it, running through the trees, not sure if anything was chasing me or not, but not daring to look back and check. I raced through the archway which marked the entrance to the orchard and Dean looked up from where he'd been tinkering with the dashboard, grabbing a gun and running to my side as I stood, breathing heavily, pointing the shotgun back towards the darkness I'd emerged from.

The darkness was still, the night peaceful.

* * *

"The scarecrow climbed off its cross?" Sam asked.

Dean and I had spent the night in the car, tucked under blankets and taking turns to keep watch through the long, cold, uneventful night, before walking back to town in the morning to buy fuel, lamenting to the locals that the fuel gauge was broken and that you just can't trust these old cars. We were on the road again now, and phone signal had returned a few miles outside of town.

"Yeah, I'm tellin' ya. Burkitsville, Indiana. Fun Town." Dean was still irritable after yesterday and it showed in his voice.

"It didn't hurt you, did it?" Sam asked, worry evident in his tone.

"No, I didn't even see it." I told him, "Just the empty cross. I think if we'd both been in the orchard it might have attacked, but Dean was back with the car, so the sacrifice was incomplete."

"We didn't really want to tangle with it, you know, since our trusty sidekick geek boy didn't manage to call us."

"Sorry, guys. I did try calling you, but it was pretty late, and the call didn't go through. I was really worried." The last was almost whispered and Dean and I exchanged a look.

"Actually, Sam," Dean seemed pretty uncomfortable and I looked away, giving him the illusion of privacy. "uh—I want you to know….I mean, don't think…."

"Yeah. I'm sorry, too."

"Sam. You were right. You gotta do your own thing. You gotta live your own life." I raised my eyebrows at my reflection in the window. I hadn't expected such acceptance from Dean.

"Are you serious?" Apparently, neither had Sam.

"You've always known what you want. And you go after it. You stand up to Dad. And you always have. Hell, I wish I—anyway… I admire that about you. I'm proud of you, Sammy."

"I don't even know what to say."

"Tell us what you found on the scarecrow."

Sam huffed a slight laugh, and his voice was more confident when he continued. "So, get this, the Vanir were Norse gods of protection and prosperity, keeping the local settlements safe from harm. Some villages built effigies of the Vanir in their fields. Other villages practiced human sacrifice. One male, and one female."

"That sounds like our guy, Sammy." I said, turning away from the window. "How do we kill it?"

"Well, Pagans believed all sorts of things were infused with magic. This particular Vanir, that energy sprung from a sacred tree."

"So what would happen if the sacred tree was torched? You think it'd kill the god?" Dean hypothesized.

* * *

The smell of damp earth invaded my nostrils, that and the pounding in my head were the first things I was aware of. I groaned and sat up a little, prompting Dean to ask me how I was feeling. We were sitting in a cellar, daylight streaming through the wooden slates of the door to the outside. Dean had been holding me against his shoulder; he'd obviously been awake for a little while and was peering at me in concern. I groaned a reply and reached out, pulling the pain from his bruises and the goose egg on the back of his head.

He smiled grimly at me in thanks, then propped me up against the shelves we'd been leaning against and climbed the stairs to the door, banging his shoulder against them in a futile attempt to break them open. I sat where he'd left me, trying to put my thoughts in order and remember what had happened. We'd ended the conversation with Sam full of optimism. We'd search the orchard, the whole town if we needed to, for this sacred tree, burn it, and meet up with Sam to go to California and search for Dad. Sam was still stuck at the bus station because the next bus to Cali didn't leave until 5pm this afternoon.

We'd pulled up outside the orchard, taken a small jerry can of fuel from the boot and a lighter and proceeded into the orchard. We hadn't gotten far.

There was a group of locals waiting for us, armed with shotguns and the element of surprise, they had surrounded us. There'd been a brief fight, but I'd taken a blow to the head and didn't remember anything after that. I groaned again, hauling myself unsteadily to my feet and taking stock of my injuries. The stab wound in my shoulder was throbbing, the stitches probably torn, and my legs were cold and stiff from sitting on the cold floor of the cellar, there were a few bruises scattered about, nothing serious, and the throbbing headache, keeping perfect time with my shoulder wound. I was slightly dizzy, but my vision remained clear, so it was only a slight concussion, I could deal with this.

I made my way on legs that were simultaneously stiff and wobbly over to the bottom of the stairs. Dean noted my approach and reached out a hand to help me up the stairs. I pushed at the locked doors above us, they didn't move, I exerted more pressure, and then I tried landing a few blows. I was too wobbly to have much impact though. Dean pulled me away, guiding me to sit on the stairs.

He went back to banging on the cellar door and I searched the room for my bag. It was missing and I felt naked without it. My weapons, my food, torch, lighters, phone… my phone! I checked my pockets, just in case, but it wasn't there.

"Dean?" My voice was croaky, and talking hurt my head, "Dean, do you have your phone?"

"Nah." He didn't bother to check his pockets, he must have realised before I woke up. "They emptied my pockets before throwing us down here."

He gave up on the door, coming to sit beside me on the step and wrapping an arm around me where I sat shivering slightly from the cold.

I was hungry, we'd not eaten since breakfast, and judging by the way the light was shifting outside, it was long past lunch. My stomach told me we'd probably missed dinner too, sat in this cold, miserable hole.

Hours passed and I got steadily colder and hungrier. Dean was suffering alongside me, and I was able to draw his pain away, so he didn't feel the cold, or the hunger gnawing at his belly. The energy helped some, but my fingers and toes were starting to turn numb, and hunger for pain and hunger for food are separate, I still needed food.

The door above us rattled as someone unlocked the chain that had held it shut and we stood, turning to glare defiantly up as the door opened, revealing the couple from the general store, Scotty and the town sheriff. All had shotguns trained on us.

"It's time." The woman announced.

They dragged us to the orchard, I had struggled at first, despite my injuries, and now there were two town elders holding my arms and another walking behind, a shotgun held to the small of my back. Dean was in a similar position and we were both obviously furious, glowering at the elders as they tied us to adjacent trees in the orchard, our backs to the nearby scarecrow.

"How many people have you killed, Sheriff? How much blood is on your hands?"

"We don't kill them." The sheriff replied, standing over Dean with a shotgun in his hands.

"No, but you sure cover up after. I mean, how many cars have you hidden, clothes have you buried?" The sheriff walked away without answering, the rest of the elders following.

"I hope your apple pie is freakin' worth it!" Dean shouted after them.

The cord they'd used to bind us was thin, but strong, and wrapped multiple times around each separate wrist. It's always easier to escape if the hands are tied together and I twisted in my bonds in frustration, trying to see the ropes above my head and behind me.

"Reckon you can get out of this one, Houdini?"

"I'm working on it" I mumbled, twisting and pulling at the cords, gritting my teeth as my actions caused them to dig into the skin of my wrists.

I was still concussed, my thoughts still foggy and my head still dizzy; it wasn't helping. I couldn't quite bring my strength to bear from this position, couldn't find an angle I could pull or push against to snap the cord, and every time I tried the cords dug deeper into my wrists.

"How's it coming?" Dean asked after some time. The sun had set while I'd struggled and the increasing gloom set my nerves on edge.

"I'm workin' on it." I growled at my brother. "Can you see?"

"What?"

"Is he moving yet?"

Dean twisted, peering over his shoulder, "I can't see." A twig snapped somewhere behind us and Dean and I made eye contact. "Crap."

We both struggled frantically with our bonds until, "Dean? Ali?"

"Sammy!" I couldn't describe the relief that washed through me at the sound of my baby brother's voice.

"Oh! Oh, I take everything back I said. I'm so happy to see you. Come on." Dean's voice reflected the joy I felt and we both sagged against the trees we were tied to as Sam moved to Dean, taking a knife to the cords at his wrists. "How'd you get here?"

"I, uh—I stole a car."

I smiled, but Dean outright laughed. "Haha! That's my boy! And keep an eye on that scarecrow. He could come alive any minute."

"What scarecrow?" At Sam's question Dean pulled himself abruptly from the ground, all humour gone. He grabbed the knife from Sam, cutting through the cords that bound me and pulling me to my feet.

I stumbled slightly, the dizziness further impeding my ability to run, not that I was ever that good at running. My brothers kept a grip on each of my arms, pulling me along between them as they jogged towards the place we'd left the car, hopefully she'd still be there.

"Alright, now, this sacred tree you're talking about—"

"They found us before we found it, Sammy."

"So let's find it now and burn it."

"Nah, in the morning. Let's just shag ass before Leather Face catches up." Dean argued as we reached a clearing, finding our path blocked by the couple from the general store. "This way." He tugged on my arm, turning me back the way we'd come, only to find that we'd been surrounded, for the second time that day.

"Please," I called out. "Let us go." Unlikely, but worth a shot.

"It'll be over quickly, I promise." The man tried to reason with us. "You have to let him take you. You have to—"

The rest of his words were cut off as the tip of the sickle appeared, dripping with blood, from his chest. His wife stood beside him screamed and the scarecrow's arm wrapped around her throat. The townspeople ran in fright, but we stood, frozen, watching the scarecrow drag the screaming woman away, his sickle now through the ankle of her dead husband.

"Come on, let's go." Dean was the first of us to recover, leading us back to the car. We jumped at every little noise, but saw nothing more of the scarecrow, his victims or the townsfolk.

* * *

When morning came we ventured once more into the orchard with our jerry can. This time no one tried to stop us. We found the tree, ancient and engraved with runes on the trunk, prayers offering the dedication of the people to the god within the tree. The accelerant was poured on, and lit from a safe distance. It went up in a great puff of flame before settling to a steady burn. We stood in the chilly orchard, arms wrapped around ourselves and felt the warmth on our faces as the tree that had been the center of such archaic and fatal traditions, finally went up in flames.

"What about the rest of the townspeople?" Sam asked. "They'll just get away with it?"

"Well, what'll happen to the town will have to be punishment enough." Dean turned and started walking away, we followed. "So, can we drop you off somewhere?"

"No," Sam wrapped an arm around my shoulders, "I think you're stuck with me."

"What made you change your mind?"

"I didn't. I still wanna find Dad. And you're still a pain in the ass." Dean nodded, seeming almost proud of that fact. "But, Jess and Mum—they're both gone. Dad is God knows where. You, Ali and me. We're all that's left. So, if we're gonna see this through, we're gonna do it together."

Dean stopped at the edge of the orchard, turning back to face us. "Hold me, Sam. That was beautiful."

Dean reached to place a hand on Sam's shoulder and Sam batted it away, laughing, "You should be kissing my ass, you were dead meat, dude."

"Yeah, right. I had a plan, I'd have gotten out."

"Right." Sam agreed, smirking at me. I smiled back, glad to have both brothers in one place and in high spirits. If only Dad were here, it would be perfect.


	13. Faith

"What do you mean I can't come?"

"I mean we've only got two Tasers, you're still injured, and you're not coming!" Dean ticked the reasons off on his fingers before using a hand on my shoulder to push me to sit on the motel bed. I toppled back, raising my other hand to grip at the shoulder he'd pushed me with. The stitches had come out just last week. One of the biggest drawbacks to being a prangeni is just how long it takes to heal from any kind of injury. One month down the line and my shoulder was still causing problems for me.

I glared at him as I sat back up, no longer arguing but still angry at being left behind. "Fine. Just be careful. Remember you only get one shot with those Tasers, but they're amped up to a hundred thousand volts, so you only need to catch him and that rawhead will be fried extra friggin' crispy. And remember that the lore said that they live at the bottom of rivers, this cellar it's hiding out in is likely to be damp; water and electricity are a bad mix."

"Yeah, yeah, we'll be careful." Sam grabbed the weapons duffel and hurried out the door. Two more children had been taken and we were in a hurry to get to the rawhead before he had a chance to eat them.

"Maybe you should be wearing wellies!" I shouted out the door after my brothers as the Impala pulled out of the motel parking lot.

We'd been hunting this rawhead for about a week; it had been difficult to narrow down what exactly we were dealing with. We'd come to town after reports had started making the papers of children going missing. Unfortunately there are plenty of things that take children, for various reasons. Including humans, for reasons of being sick in the head.

We'd finally narrowed it down to a creature, a location and a kill method and managed to get our hands on the Tasers and amp them up far beyond the legal limit when a call had come in on the police scanner saying that two more children, a brother and sister, had disappeared on their way home from school.

There wasn't anything more I could do at this stage, except sit and worry. And frankly, I'd gotten tired of sitting at home and worrying about my brothers years ago. I try to ignore the worry; if I can't be there to help it's really much more productive to take a nice relaxing shower and have some time to unwind. We'd be caught up in another case soon enough.

I gathered my wash kit and a towel, heading to the bathroom, which in this particular motel wasn't completely awful, always a plus. The water pressure left something to be desired, but the water was warm, and the bathroom had been clean when we'd arrived. Though of course, after a week of sharing it with my two brothers it could definitely do with cleaning again. I took my time with my ablutions, carefully washing my shoulder without getting soap in the wound. It looked like it had scabbed over, but sod's law said that if there was a way to get soap in it, then I would. I dried off and changed into fresh underwear and one of Sam's old t-shirts, noting that we needed to do laundry soon, and then I tucked myself into one of the beds and grabbed the remote control. I might finally get to see the end of Back to the Future before my brothers returned.

I seemed to be cursed with that film, every time I tried to watch it something would interrupt. I've seen McFly go to the past several times, but I've never actually seen him go back to the future. I was dosing off to McFly's mother flirting with him when my phone rang. I rolled my eyes, hitting mute as I answered it.

"Ali, it's Dean, he's hurt." Sam's voice was shaking, slightly rushed and panicking.

"Okay, Sammy, calm down." I was instantly the older sister, calm and reliable in a crisis as I tried to calm my brother and get the whole story out of him. "Take a few deep breathes and tell me what happened, okay?"

I put the phone on speaker, dropping it on the bed while I pulled jeans and a top on and rubbing the towel I was still wearing on my head over my hair to dry it a bit more.

"We got to the house, went down to the cellar, found the two kids in a cupboard. They were fine so I went to get them out of there. The rawhead grabbed at my ankle as we were climbing the stairs, Dean shot at it but missed. It let me go, so I threw my Taser to Dean and got the kids outside. When I went back in the rawhead was a puddle of goo and Dean was lying unconscious in a puddle of water."

I grabbed a jacket, my bag and keys, picket up the phone, taking it off speaker and holding it to my ear as I left the motel room.

"So, you took him and the kids to a hospital. Which one, I'll meet you there." I started jogging. I may not be fast, but I can cover long distances when I need to. Dad made me practice, he was trying to make me faster, but eventually the goal shifted when it became clear that I'm just plain slow.

"St Mary's, it was closer."

"Okay, give me half an hour. And Sam, what name is he under?"

"Uh, Burkovitz. I need to talk to the cops, Ali. I'll see you soon."

We hung up and I dropped the phone into my bag, stuffing the jacket in there too and pulling it so I held it in my arms, rather than allowing it to bump along by my side. St Mary's was about three and a half miles from the motel; if I hurried I could do that in half an hour.

Thirty three minutes later I huffed and puffed my way up to the reception desk and asked for Burkovitz. It didn't take me long to get my breath back and soon I was hurrying along the passage and climbing the stairs, rather than waiting for the lift.

I found Sam sitting on a hard plastic chair in the hallway. "Sam! What's happening? Is he okay?"

Sam looked up, before rising to his feet and engulfing me in a hug. "The doctors are seeing him now. We just have to wait."

We waited a long time in that hallway. Medical staff bustled up and down, and police occasionally wanted to talk to Sam. He gave them the same story every time; that he and Dean had been taking a shortcut through the neighbourhood with the windows rolled down, they'd heard screaming and found the kids in the basement.

Hours passed and the ball of worry that I'd so successfully pushed away when the boys left me in the motel room twisted itself tighter and tighter inside my chest. The pain echoing all around us would normally have been driving me insane, but now it was barely a background hum. I wasn't sure if my nausea was caused by Deathcries or by the worry which seemed to grow with every minute that passed without news.

Dean was my big brother, the one who'd taken care of me after Dad saved me from my father, the one whom Sam and I had relied on for, well... everything. We couldn't lose him, we couldn't.

Finally, a doctor walking down the corridor caught Sam's attention and he rose to greet the man.

"Hey, Doc. Is he…"

"He's resting." The doctor assured Sam as I pulled myself out of the chair I'd occupied for the past four hours and stood at Sam's side.

The doctor glanced at me, clearing his throat and Sam quickly introduced me as his sister and asked him to continue. "The electrocution triggered a heart attack. Pretty massive, I'm afraid. His heart...it's damaged."

"How damaged?"

"We've done all we can." The doctor told us quietly. "We can try and keep him comfortable at this point. But, I'd give him a couple weeks, at most, maybe a month."

"No, no. There's, there's...gotta be something you can do, some kind of treatment." Sam's hand gripped mine, shaking slightly.

"We can't work miracles. I really am sorry." The doctor shook his head kindly and turned to leave.

"Where is he, Sam?" I was taking deep breaths, keeping the panic under control. It was Dean, he'd be okay; Dean always was.

Sam led the way down the passage pulling me wordlessly into one of the rooms.

Dean was lying in the hospital bed, his skin paler than normal and with dark circles under his eyes. He was flicking through the channels on the TV.

"Have you ever actually watched daytime TV? It's terrible." Dean voice was weak, and his focus stayed on the TV, rather than looking at us.

Sam shook his head, sighing at Dean's classic 'avoid things involving feelings', "I talked to your doctor."

"That fabric softener teddy bear. Oh, I'm gonna hunt that little bitch down." I rounded the bed, pulled the remote from Dean's hand and switched the TV off, finally getting my brother's attention.

"Yeah. All right, well, looks like you're gonna leave town without me." His voice sounded resigned, and I frowned at him as he continued to avoid eye contact with me.

"What are you talking about?" Sam asked, drawing Dean's attention to him. "We're not gonna leave you here."

"Hey, you better take care of that car. Or, I swear, I'll haunt your asses." Dean pointed at each of us and I snorted slightly, reaching out to stroke his hair. I love running my hands through his hair; it's very soft, but he only lets me do it when he's feeling especially sorry for himself.

"I don't think that's funny." Sam told him.

"Oh, come on, it's a little funny." Dean pointed at me, as if to indicate that I'd laughed, so it must be funny.

There was a long silence, during which I kept stroking Dean's hair until Sam looked down, trying to hide his tears and Dean sighed. "Look, Sammy, what can I say, man, it's a dangerous gig. I drew the short straw. That's it, end of story."

"Don't talk like that, alright? We still have options."

"What options? Yeah, burial or cremation. And I know it's not easy. But I'm gonna die. And you can't stop it."

"Watch me." Sam stalked out of the room and Dean and I watched him go.

"You know, you're kind of a pessimist."

Dean didn't answer, just relaxed into the bed and closed his eyes. I settled myself on the edge of his bed, still stroking his hair and quietly singing Dust in the Wind by Kansas.

Dean drifted off to sleep and a nurse who'd come to check on him told me off for being on the bed. She fetched me a chair instead and the hours passed by. I watched my brother's chest rise and fall with his breaths, studied the sprinkling of freckles across his nose which now stood in stark contrast to his pale skin and the way his long eyelashes rested against his cheeks.

As the painkillers they'd given him started to wear off I took over, allowing him to rest comfortably and not feel the ache all over his body. His heart wasn't the only organ that had been damaged by the electrocution; it was just the one that would kill him first.

I meditated for a while, difficult though it was to ignore the hustle and bustle of the hospital around us, complete with the pain that only I and the people suffering from it could sense. I tried to reach down inside myself to the calm place where my little store of magic is kept, hoping I could maybe repair some of the damage. I couldn't reach the calm place; my heart was too much in turmoil.

I curled up in that hard plastic chair, clinging to my dying brother's hand and wept silently. What use was healing magic if I couldn't use it when it really mattered? What was the point of studying all this stuff if none of it could save him? What use was _I_ if all I could do for my brother was keep him comfortable while he died?

* * *

The next day Sam was back. The nurses hadn't liked me staying overnight at Dean's bedside, but I'd argued that I wasn't bothering anyone, nor getting in their way, and that the fight they'd have to remove me and keep me out would disturb far more patients than if they just let me sit there quietly. They'd reluctantly agreed, but I'd had the same argument with the new nurses every time the shift changed.

Sam was finally able to persuade me to go to the bathroom, and down to the café, promising that he would stay with Dean while I did. I felt better when I returned and I sat on Sam's knee, reaching out for Dean's hand again. They'd given him more pain medication while I was away and he was sleeping peacefully, so I curled into Sam's shoulder and we whispered quietly.

"I take it you've been up all night looking for a fix. You look awful." He did; the bags under his eyes were almost as bad as Dean's.

"Yeah. Nothing yet, but I brought you some reading material, if you wanted to help." He pulled a couple of leather-bound books from his laptop bag, placing them on the bedside table.

"Are those spell books?" I sat straight, glancing at my brother in suspicion.

He gave me a mild bitchface in return. "You really thought you could hide it? We know you've been dabbling, and we know you're being careful, which is the only reason Dean hasn't torn you a new one over it."

I dropped my eyes, "You knew?"

"Yeah, we figured it out after the deal with all those bugs. I don't know what you did, but it worked. Do you know any healing spells?"

There was so much hope, in his voice and his eyes and I hated to crush it. "I've been trying all night." I told him, shaking my head and watching as the light of hope in his eyes went out.

"Well, maybe there'll be something in one of these." He gestured at the two books on the nightstand. "I picked them up at a second hand bookstore. The owner was glad to be rid of them, kept muttering about satanic rubbish and Halloween pranks, and fiddling with the cross around her neck."

I snorted and slipped from Sam's lap to take a seat on the floor with the first of the books in my lap. It was a grimoire, written in French and mainly focusing on household spells. Things to remove mildew, prevent old rooves from leaking, keep fires burning nicely while you were out and stop the food from burning. They were minor good luck charms more than anything, but it was all handwritten and I had to go through every page to make sure I didn't miss anything. There were a few healing spells, things for headaches and snotty noses, but nothing on the scale that we were looking for and a few hours later I sighed as I closed the book, handing it back to Sam, who'd been taping away on his laptop the whole time.

"Nothing in there." He took it from me and leafed through a few pages.

"Are you sure? It looked like the real deal."

"It is." I told him, standing and stretching. "It's real magic, nothing bad in there either; it's just that it's all small fry, nothing useful to us." I sighed and took Dean's hand, drawing out his pain as the meds had started to wear off.

Dean stirred slightly, the pattern of his breathing changed and he woke, though his eyes stayed shut, and Sam didn't notice.

"Alright." Sam sighed, shutting his laptop and packing it away before rising from his chair and yawning. "I'll keep looking. I take it you're staying here again tonight?"

I nodded, accepted Sam's small hug and watched him leave.

"You can stop pretending to be asleep." Dean's eye's jerked open in surprise, guilt filling them as he looked at me.

"How did you know?"

"I share a bed with you most nights, I know what your breathing pattern is when you're asleep, and what it is when you're about to wake up, and what it is when you're awake but denying it, and what it is when you're awake but pretending not to be so that you can eavesdrop."

He stared at me with wide eyes. "Ali, that's kind of creepy."

I smiled and reached down to hug him, perching myself on the edge of his bed and reaching out to stroke his hair.

"So, you and Sam still fighting the inevitable, huh?"

"Just like you would if it was one of us." That got a slight smile on his face, before it faded again and he just looked sad.

"You'll take care of him, when I'm gone."

"Of course I will." I stood from the bed and grabbed the second book Sam had brought, settling myself in the chair he'd vacated. "But that won't be for years yet."

Dean didn't reply and we sat for some time in silence, just holding hands. I read my book, this one was in English, but written in the runic alphabet used by Tolkien in The Hobbit; it didn't look likely that it would hold any useful information. A nurse came with dinner for Dean and he pulled a face at the healthy food, and flat out refused to eat what they had described as apple pie. Though looking at it, I really couldn't blame him. He turned soulful puppy eyes on me and I sighed, agreeing to go and fetch him some real food.

He really has no right to complain when Sam uses the puppy eyes trick, given that Sammy had definitely learnt it from Dean.

The nurses protested when I returned to the hospital with cheeseburgers and cherry pie for two, but when I pointed out, with tears in my eyes, that the doctors had predicted that my brother had mere weeks to live, so his diet wouldn't have time to affect his health anyway, they let me through. I stopped outside Dean's room and gathered myself; wiping the tears from my eyes and pulling a smile onto my face. I don't think I fooled him, but then, given his focus on the food, maybe he didn't notice. Either way, he didn't comment.

* * *

On the third day, Dean decided that he'd had enough. We argued over it, but he wouldn't be dissuaded and eventually I agreed that staying in the hospital wouldn't be sufficiently beneficial to be worth arguing over. He did agree to wait for me to go and fetch the car, and I jogged back to the motel, taking my time this time and arriving after a thirty seven minute steady jog. Sam wasn't in the room when I arrived, or he just wasn't answering the door, so I picked the lock and helped myself to Baby's keys which were sat on the table beneath some of the piles of research. Sam had clearly been busy while I'd been staying with our older brother.

I wrote Sam a quick note to explain the absence of the car and left. Sam returned to the motel, coffee in hand, just as I was getting in the car and I paused to speak with him. He'd not found anything in the papers and books that had been spread across both the table and one of the beds in the room, but he'd called every contact we had and one of them, Joshua, had phoned back with news about a faith healer in Nebraska who'd been working miracles, healing the sick.

"You phoned everyone? Even Dad?" I asked, "What'd he say?"

Sam shifted uncomfortably, keeping his eyes on his feet, the car, my shoulder, anywhere but at me. "I haven't phoned him yet." It was mumbled quietly enough that a human would have needed to ask Sam to repeat himself, but I'd heard just fine.

I rolled my eyes, Sam had been pretty angry with Dad lately, and not without reason, so it wasn't a huge surprise that Sam had put off phoning him.

"I'll make the call." Sam nodded in relief, "You look into this guy in Nebraska. That's a long drive for Dean if it turns out just to be smoke and mirrors."

Sam grinned and nodded, turning back to the motel room with a new spring in his step.

I sank into the driver's seat of the car. Not a seat I occupy very often; I can drive, Dean taught me while Sammy was at college. In case we ever needed a second driver and Dad wasn't with us, a getaway driver, a get-to-medical-aid driver, that sort of thing. I'm much shorter than the men in my family though, and whereas they have the bench seat all the way back when they drive, I need it almost all the way to the front in order to reach the pedals, making me a rather unpopular driver.

For now though, while I was alone in the car, I took out my phone and looked at it. Now that I was going to be the one calling, I could understand exactly why Sam had put it off. What was I going to say? How do you tell your father that his first born son was dying in hospital? Would he even answer? Was I going to have to tell him this in a message?

I dropped the phone to my lap, sighing and running my free hand through my hair, as far as I could before it caught in the tangles. I'd not been taking care of myself since the rawhead hunt, I really needed to brush my hair, and take a shower. For now though, I took a fortifying breath and pressed speed dial 3. It rang, and rang, and rang until the answering machine picked up and Dad's voice read out the same message I'd heard every other time I'd tried to get in touch with him since he'd disappeared from Jericho. "This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean. 866-907-3235. He can help."

The beep sounded and I stumbled over my words, tears springing to my eyes at the perceived rejection from our father when Dean needed him most. "D-Dad? It's Ali, I uh… I guess I'm calling to let you know what's happening, Sammy and I are fine, but Dean?" I paused, fighting to keep my voice even. "He's hurt Dad. The last hunt, a rawhead, it went wrong and Dean got electrocuted. It's bad, Dad, the doctors… they say he's got a couple of weeks left. But, uh, they don't know what we do, right?" Tears were pouring down my face by this point, and my voice was definitely wobbling, my breathing uneven. "We'll find something, Dad, we'll get him better. But… anything you know; any favour you can call in… We need you, Daddy."

I hung up, wiping the tears from my face and resting my head back, just looking at the ceiling of the car while my breathing returned to normal and the tear tracks dried on my cheeks. Once I'd mastered myself I pulled the seat forwards to where I needed it before starting the engine and making the return journey to the hospital.

Dean was waiting outside when I arrived. He looked awful. The failing daylight highlighted the dark marks beneath his eyes and he was leaning heavily against the wall. The grin he gave me when I pulled up looked rather more like a wince and I hurried from the car to his side, quickly returning to my task of drawing the pain from him.

"You could've waited inside, Dean." I gripped his arm helping him to the car. "It's not like I'd have left without you."

"Yeah, but you hate hospitals." He gave me his charming smile, which usually meant he wanted me to forgive him for some minor thing. "And besides, I wanted the fresh air."

I rolled my eyes at him and helped him into the backseat, he protested slightly, but then noticed how much legroom there was in the back with the front seat forwards and rolled his eyes at me, getting in without further complaint.

* * *

Sam seemed surprised when he opened the motel room door to find me with Dean draped over my good shoulder. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Dean grinned at him as I helped him over the step and started guiding him towards the table. "I checked myself out."

"What, are you crazy?" Sam then turned on me, "And you let him?" I just rolled my eyes at Sam, like anyone could have stopped Dean from leaving that hospital.

"Well, I'm not gonna die in a hospital where the nurses aren't even hot." Dean grunted slightly as I dropped him into the chair.

Sam huffed a laugh and shut the door which he'd still been holding open. "You know; this whole I-laugh-in-the-face-of-death thing? It's crap. I can see right through it."

"Yeah, whatever, dude. Have you even slept? You look worse than me." Sam did look bad, but Dean clearly hadn't seen any mirrors lately.

"I've been scouring the Internet for the last three days. Calling every contact in Dad's journal." Sam retook his seat on the only patch of bed that was clear of papers on heart treatments.

"For what?"

"For a way to help you. One of Dad's friends, Joshua, he called me back. Told me about a guy in Nebraska. A specialist." Sam carefully avoided the words 'faith healer'; although he'd readily told me, we both knew that Dean wouldn't buy it if he heard those words.

"You're not gonna let me die in peace, are you?"

"We're not gonna let you die, period. We're going."

* * *

After showers, I'd insisted that Sam sleep before getting behind the wheel, as a result I'd ended up driving, my brothers both slumbering in the back seat. Sam had woken at daybreak and I'd pulled over to get fuel and breakfast. Dean had been grumpy when he woke and we'd rearranged the car so that Sam was driving, Dean sitting shotgun and I leant over from the back, feeding on Dean's pain and dozing as Sam drove the rest of the way.

I was jolted out of my doze when the Impala had bumped over a pothole in the gravel track leading up to a muddy field later that afternoon. There were plenty of cars parked in the field, and quite a few campervans too. There was a white marquee set up and people were moving towards it through the drizzling rain, many of them were being helped to walk, some were old, others weren't, but in every group there was someone who was clearly ill.

I yawned as Sam parked the car and we got out. Dean opened his door, grimacing as he moved, and looked at the sign next to the tent. 'The church of Roy LeGrange. Faith Healer. Witness The Miracle.' He scowled at it, then at me as I rested my hand on his shoulder, and then at Sam as he joined us.

"I got ya." Sam reached out to help pull Dean to his feet, but Dean pulled away angrily.

"I got it." He pushed Sam away and stood, allowing me to link my arm through his, taking his hand and gently dulling his pain. It was clear he was still hurting, but I'd been at it for so long that I really couldn't keep it up much longer. "Man, you are a lying bastard. Thought you said we were going to see a doctor."

"I believe I said a specialist." Sam evaded, "Look, Dean, this guy's supposed to be the real deal."

"I can't believe you brought me here to see some guy who heals people out of a tent." Dean grumbled.

"Reverend LeGrange is a great man." An old woman with an umbrella remonstrated as she passed us.

"Yeah, that's nice." Dean retorted, clearly not convinced.

We passed an angry man arguing with a cop. "I have a right to protest. This man is a fraud. And he's milking all these people out of their hard-earned money."

"I take it he's not part of the flock." Dean observed as the policeman led the man away from the tent.

"But when people see something they can't explain, there's controversy." Sam excused the man in a voice that told me he was choosing his words carefully, trying not to spark an argument from Dean.

"I mean, come on, Sam, a faith healer?" He turned to me, "Did you know this is where we were going?"

"Maybe it's time to have a little faith, Dean."

"You know what I've got faith in? Reality. Knowing what's really going on."

"How can you be a skeptic, Dean? With the things we see every day?" I gave an extra strong tug on his pain, just to prove my point, "The way I can take pain away, any idea how I do that? 'cause I sure as hell don't know."

"Yeah, but you're clearly real, I can see you, I know you're real."

"But if you know evil's out there, how can you not believe good's out there, too?" Sam jumped back into the argument.

"Because I've seen what evil does to good people." Dean retorted.

The young woman walking in front of us suddenly turned around. "Maybe God works in mysterious ways."

Dean straightened, pulling away from me and giving her a charming smile. "Maybe he does. I think you just turned me around on the subject."

"Yeah, I'm sure." She laughed slightly.

"I'm Dean. This is Sam and Ali." Dean held his hand out to the pretty blonde as Sam and I pulled faces at each other behind his back; even dying, Dean couldn't help flirting.

"Layla." She said, taking his hand. "So, if you're not a believer, then why are you here?"

"Well, apparently my siblings here believe enough for all of us."

An older woman who bore a great resemblance to the young woman came and put her arm around her, "Come on, Layla. It's about to start."

The two of them smiled at us and turned away, entering the tent. "Well, I bet you she can work in some mysterious ways." Dean commented quietly. I smacked him in the arm and pulled him into the tent after them.

There were a few seats left when we entered and Dean headed towards a seat at the back, nodding towards a security camera mounted on a supporting pole. "Yeah, peace, love, and trust all over."

"Come on." Sam wrapped an arm around Dean and forcefully pulled him towards three seats closer to the stage at the front of the tent.

"Don't! What are you doing? Let's sit here." Dean gestured back towards the seats in the last row.

"We're sitting up front."

"What? Why?"

"Because Sam's a nerd, Dean, of course he always sits at the front of the classroom." Sam turned back to scowl at me for that comment, but it brought a smile to Dean's face.

"This is ridiculous." Dean slapped Sam's hand away from his arm, "I'm good, dude, get off me."

Sam let go and pointed to three empty seats behind Layla and her mother. "Perfect." He moved into the row, ignoring Dean's sarcastic response. "You take the aisle."

I ended up taking the aisle seat, Sam frowned at me, but the crowd was settling down as a woman helped a blind man to the lectern, and he said nothing.

"Each morning, my wife, Sue Ann, reads me the news. Never seems good, does it?" The man started, once silence had fallen. "Seems like there's always someone committing some immoral, unspeakable act."

The crowd responded as appropriate every time the Reverend paused and I started to tune him out. After everything I've seen, everything I've lived through, I'm not sure I believe in God. I'm sure He could be real, but that doesn't mean that I have any faith in Him. He allows too much suffering for me to be able to believe in Him, I'd rather believe in the Winchesters. They help people, they save people, they saved me.

I'm sure religious folks would say that God sent them to me, but that means that God took Mum from them, and that doesn't seem right or fair to me. Dean wouldn't be dying now if he wasn't a hunter. But then, I'm not the only one they've saved. There must be hundreds more people alive today who wouldn't be if Mary Winchester hadn't been killed by a demon.

"It is the Lord who does the healing here friends. The Lord who guides me in choosing who to heal by helping me see into people's hearts."

"Yeah, and into their wallets." Dean muttered quietly to Sam, though apparently not quietly enough.

"You think so, young man?"

The crowd, who had been murmuring their approval of the Reverend's words fell silent and Dean shifted uncomfortably in his seat next to me. "Sorry."

"No, no. Don't be. Just watch what you say around a blind man, we've got real sharp ears." The Reverend smiled in our general direction as the crowd laughed. "What's your name, son?"

Dean cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable being the center of attention, but answered.

"Dean." Reverend LeGrange repeated, nodding to himself. "I want-I want you to come up here with me."

The crowd started to applaud, though Layla and he mother in front of us sat stiff and unmoving in their seats. Dean ducked his head, shaking it and trying to appear smaller in his seat. (He's six feet tall, he just isn't capable of looking small) "No, it's okay."

"What are you doing?!" Sam hissed from Dean's other side.

"You've come here to be healed, haven'tcha?" The Reverend asked.

"Well, yeah, but ahh..."Dean seemed shaken, especially when the congregation responded to his words. "…maybe you should just pick someone else."

"Oh, no." The Reverend chuckled slightly, "I didn't pick you, Dean, the Lord did."

With both the crowd and Sam encouraging him Dean finally rose from his seat. I moved into the aisle to let him out, gripping his hand as he passed me. I remained standing where I was, too caught up in the desperate hope that this would work to give a thought to sitting down again.

The woman who'd helped the Reverend to the stage, presumably his wife Sue Ann, directed Dean to stand next to Roy LeGrange who quietly questioned Dean. "You ready?"

"Look," Dean responded in the same low tone that would pass unnoticed beneath the cheers of the crowd, "no disrespect, but ahh, I'm not exactly a believer."

Roy just laughed, "You will be, son. You will be." In a louder voice he addressed the congregation. "Pray with me, friends."

The people all lifted their hands into the air, joining hands, and I clasped my hands together over my mouth, barely daring to breath. My entire focus was on my brother standing uncomfortably on the stage with the Reverend's hand resting on his head. I could tell that he didn't want to be there, his skepticism and lack of belief in God meant that a church was pretty much a new experience for him, coupled with being the focus of attention and it all added up to Dean wanting to retreat and regroup. But as I watched, his body drained of tension and his eyes glazed over, he sank to his knees, the Reverend's hand following.

A second hand, old and withered, appeared on Dean's head, opposite to where Roy LeGrange's still rested. I jolted in shock, and glanced briefly at the old man in a black suit who was leaning over my brother. Where had he come from? Then I focused once again on Dean as he keeled over, his eye's slipping back in his head.

"Dean!" Sam almost knocked me over as we both rushed to the stage. The crowd was clapping, their exuberance a sharp contrast to the panic I felt tightening my chest as Sam grabbed the front of Dean's hoodie, pulling him up.

Dean's eye's shot open and he gasped. The tension in my chest released and I felt like I had surfaced from underwater, gulping breaths as I reached for my big brother. "Say something!"

He blinked, clearly trying to bring himself back to awareness while I reached out for his pain, pleased when I could find nothing. Then I sensed panic, and Dean's eyes widened as he stared at something over my shoulder. I twisted around and saw… just people. The Reverend, his wife and the man who'd placed his hand so suddenly on Dean's head. Then my eyes widened to match my brother's; the man looked human only to a casual glance, on closer inspection he was… I don't know what he was. He was tall, he had black, sunken eyes and his skin was a mottled grey and every inch of it was deeply wrinkled, as if the man was several hundred years old. The man, whatever he was, turned away, and faded away into thin air.

* * *

The next day we were in the hospital, getting Dean checked. Dean and I had been quiet ever since we'd seen the strange man, but Sam hadn't quit asking if Dean was really okay.

"Well, according to all your tests there's nothing wrong with your heart. No sign there ever was. Not that a man your age should be having heart trouble, but, still it's strange it does happen." The doctor announced, I shot a victorious look at Sam, hopefully he'd stop asking 'are you okay?' every five minutes.

"What do you mean, strange?" Dean asked.

The doctor folded her arms over her clipboard. "Well, just yesterday, a young guy like you, twenty-seven, athletic. Out of nowhere, heart attack."

Dean looked troubled by that, and I have to admit that something sounded strange about that, maybe our kind of strange. "Thanks, Doc."

She left the room and Dean turned to face us. "That's odd."

"Maybe it's a coincidence. People's hearts give out all the time, man." Sam tried to reason.

"No, they don't."

"Look, do we really have to look this one in the mouth? Why can't we just be thankful that the guy saved your life and move on?"

"Because I can't shake this feeling, that's why." I knew what Dean meant; the strange vanishing man had definitely left a bad taste in my mouth. Though I was infinately grateful Dean had been spared. "When I was healed, I just...I felt wrong. I felt cold. And for a second...I saw someone. This, uh, this old man. And I'm telling you, Sam, it was a spirit."

 _A spirit? It's possible, I suppose._

"But if there was something there, Dean, I think I would've seen it, too." Sam said. "I mean, I've been seeing an awful lot of things lately."

"Well, excuse me, psychic wonder. But you're just gonna need a little faith on this one. Sam, I've been hunting long enough to trust a feeling like this."

"You didn't see it, Sam?" Both brothers turned to stare at me, Dean with a look of confusion and Sam looked like I'd just told him he couldn't come in the clubhouse.

"Well, that's weird." Dean concluded, turning to Sam as if challenging him to deny it now.

"Okay, fine." Sam sighed. "What do you want to do?"

"I want you to go check out the heart attack guy. We're gonna visit the Reverend."

* * *

"I feel great." Dean told Reverend Roy, we were sat on couches in his living room, "Just trying to, you know, make sense of what happened."

Sue Ann handed me a glass of water and I smiled in thanks as she joined us. "A miracle is what happened. Well, miracles come so often around Roy."

"When did they start?" Dean asked Roy, "The miracles."

"Woke up one morning, stone blind." He told us. "Doctors figured out I had cancer. Told me I had maybe a month. So, uh, we prayed for a miracle. I was weak, but I told Sue Ann, 'You just keep right on praying.' I went into a coma. Doctors said I wouldn't wake up, but I did. And the cancer was gone."

He took off his sunglasses, showing us his pure white eyes. "If it wasn't for these eyes, no one would believe I'd ever had it."

"And suddenly you could heal people?" I asked him.

He nodded in my direction, replacing his glasses. "I discovered it afterward, yes. God's blessed me in many ways."

"And his flock just swelled overnight." Sue Ann told us proudly, "And this is just the beginning."

"Can I ask you one last question?" Dean asked quietly, his voice serious. "Why? Why me? Out of all the sick people, why save me?"

"Well, like I said before, the Lord guides me. I looked into your heart, and you just stood out from all the rest."

"What did you see in my heart?" _Burnt, dying flesh? Wow, I can be morbid sometimes._

"A young man with an important purpose. A job to do. And it isn't finished."

We left not long after that revelation, but I hung back, gesturing to Sue Ann and Dean that I'd be just a moment as she showed us out.

"Thank you." I told the old man quietly, "For helping him, and please send my thanks to the Lord, I suspect you're on better terms with Him than I am."

"You don't need to thank me. The good Lord gave me this blessing and I use it as He guides me. You should send Him your thanks yourself." I smiled slightly, knowing that he'd be able to hear it in my voice even if he couldn't see it.

"I will. I do believe that there is a God, an Almighty Creator, but I don't believe that He automatically deserves to be worshiped. I've had a life full of ups and downs, and the downs have been… pretty awful. I know a lot about abusive and neglectful parents; and being a father doesn't mean that they deserve respect or love. I'll give my thanks, although I know that God didn't want him saved to spare my feelings, my brother means the world to me, so I'm unspeakably grateful that I won't lose him."

"The Lord works in mysterious ways, child. Perhaps your hardships are preparing you for some task in His great plan. And a parent will always love their child, even if that child doesn't always love them." _Mine didn't._

I kept my thoughts to myself, bidding him goodbye and joining my brother on the porch, where Sue Ann was explaining to Layla and her mother that Roy wouldn't be taking any more guests that day.

"Sue Ann, please." The older woman protested. "This is our sixth time; he's got to see us."

"Roy is well aware of Layla's situation." Sue Ann said as I passed her. I smiled at Layla in greeting and took Dean's hand as I joined him. "And he very much wants to help just as soon as the Lord allows. Have faith, Mrs Rourke."

Sue Ann went back inside, Mrs Rourke staring after her. She turned back in disappointment and found me and Dean stood on the porch steps behind her. "Why are you still even here? You got what you wanted."

Layla protested softly at her mother's words, but she went on, clearly frustrated. "No, Layla, this is too much. We've been to every single service. If Roy would stop choosing these strangers over you. Strangers who don't even believe. I just can't pray any harder."

"Layla, what's wrong?" Dean's soft concerned voice calmed the situation slightly.

"I have this thing..."

"It's a brain tumour." Her mother finished, bluntly. "It's inoperable. In six months, the doctors say..."

Layla placed a hand on her mother's shoulder, stopping her words and offering comfort.

"I'm sorry."

Lay smiled softly, "It's okay."

"No. It isn't." Her mother said pointedly, staring at her daughter. Then she turned to face Dean. "Why do you deserve to live more than my daughter?"

The woman turned to leave and Layla smiled softly before following. I chewed on my lower lip in thought. A brain tumour… significantly smaller than Dean's injuries, those were too great for me to even really attempt to heal, but a brain tumour…

"Layla!" I called, running down the steps to catch her before she could go far. "Listen, I can heal people. Nothing on the scale that the Reverend can do, I wasn't able to help Dean, but I could try to help you, if you'd like." I spoke quietly, hoping that her mother wouldn't overhear. "I can't make any promises that it would work, but if you wanted to try, you can call me." I pulled a pen and a scrap of paper from my bag, scribbling my number on it before handing it to Layla. "We could talk about how my healing works, exactly what and where the tumour is, we could plan what I would try to do and you can make a decision about whether you want to try, okay?"

The blonde took the paper with my number, looking surprised and a little unsure, "O-okay."

I smiled at her and she left, following after her mother, who was waiting for her.

Dean joined me, watching the two walk away. "Why did you tell her?"

"Because I suspect that her mother is normally a perfectly lovely person."

* * *

When we returned to the motel room, Sam was sitting at the table with his laptop open.

"What'd you find out?" Dean asked, throwing the keys on the bed.

"I'm sorry." Sam murmured to the screen of his laptop.

Dean dropped his jacket on the bed and we both approached Sam. "Sorry about what?"

"Marshall Hall died at 4:17."

Dean looked stunned. "The exact time I was healed."

I wasn't surprised; a life for a life is how these types of spells work in the lore. It was something I had found in my research and I had pondered the morality of it. Could I have cast such a spell? Could I have consciously condemned someone else to die, so that Dean could live? It's not unheard of for some lives to be considered worth more than others, saving children first in disaster situations for example. Could I have killed an innocent person? I don't think so, but if we had found no other way to save Dean, would I have considered sacrificing a criminal? I think I would have. Does that make me a horrible person?

It doesn't matter in the end of course; someone else has done it for me.

"Yeah. So, I put together a list of everyone Roy's healed, six people over the past year, and I cross-checked them with the local obits." Sam clicked through some of his research on the screen. "Every time someone was healed, someone else died. And each time, the victim died of the same symptom LeGrange was healing at the time."

My phone rang and I fished it out of the depths of my bag, pressing the green key to accept the call.

It was Layla and I stepped outside to talk to her.

"Tell me about your healing?"

"You're Christian, right? Promise not to burn the witch?" I started with a joking tone, hoping to wipe the discussion I'd had with my brothers from my mind, which was increasingly difficult as I became aware of Dean's rising distress. I moved further away from the door as I went on. "Seriously though, I don't know how to explain it other than magic. It's like there's an exchange of energy, nothing comes for free, you want to be healed; a price must be paid. In this case it'll be energy that I put forward. You understand?"

She made a noise of acknowledgement and I wandered on down the street. "Depending on exactly what is wrong with your head, I'll find out what I can do, we can discuss it and you can decide if you want to give it a go."

"Umm, okay." She sounded pretty uncertain. "Magic? Like witches?"

"Similar, it works on a similar principal. But witches of stories and the witch hunts are generally evil witches. They get their powers from deals with the devil, or they simply use their own powers for selfish or cruel reasons. I was born with my abilities, and among people who are born with appreciable ability and trained to use it, I'm pretty unremarkable."

"You know a lot of witches?"

"No, I've come across a few, mostly bad, it's generally best to avoid witches, which isn't difficult, since they're so rare. But I don't think of myself as a witch. Partly because of the negative associations, and partly because honing my abilities isn't something I've actively pursued. Like someone who's good at sports, but doesn't train and compete, wouldn't consider themselves an athlete."

"Oh, okay." She was silent for a while and I walked along giving her time to think about what I'd said.

"So, if you can heal people, why didn't you heal your brother?" Her question was honestly curious and I sighed in frustration with my own inability to have done exactly what she'd suggested.

"Dean was suffering from heart complications after electrocution. The doctors didn't really care that the rest of his internal organs had also been fried, because his heart would kill him before it became an issue." I sighed again, stopping my walk and staring up at a pigeon cooing on a street lamp above me. "I might have been strong enough to heal his heart. But I'd have only bought him another week at most before something else became fatal. I wasn't strong enough to heal everything." A tear trickled down my cheek at what might have been had Joshua not told us about Reverend LeGrange.

"So, why am I different?"

"You've only got one issue. One fairly small issue, that might be fairly easy for me to fix, or it might be complicated, I can't really know until I take a look."

She agreed to talk in person and we arranged to meet for a coffee the next morning and then I returned to the motel. _Should I tell her what Roy is doing? Trading one life for another? Should I tell her that someone would have to die to allow her to live if Roy were to save her?_

By the time I'd reached the car park I had no answers and I sighed as I knocked on the door. Dean opened it for me, clearly midway through a discussion with Sam regarding Reapers.

"… think it's THE Grim Reaper? Like, angel of death, collect your soul, the whole deal?"

"No, no, no, not THE reaper, A reaper. There's reaper lore in pretty much every culture on earth, it goes by 100 different names, it's possible that there's more than one of them." Dean told Sam who was sat where he'd been when I left; at the table with his laptop. Though a few more research papers now encircled him.

"But you said you saw a dude in a suit."

"Creepy-ass pale dude in a suit." I confirmed, picking up some of the pages scattered around the table and skimming the information.

"What, you think he shoulda been working the whole black robe thing?...You said it yourself that the clock stopped right? Reapers stop time. And you can only see 'em when they're coming at you which is why I could see it and you couldn't."

"And me?" I asked, looking up, "How come I could see it?"

"I don't know, you're not completely human, maybe prangeni can see reapers?" Dean guessed. "But there's nothing else it could be. The question is how is Roy controlling the damn thing?"

There was a pause while Dean sipped at the coffee in his hand and I scoured the information in front of me; reapers weren't something I knew much about. Then Sam seemed to realise the answer we were searching for. "That cross."

"What?" We both frowned slightly at him.

"There was this cross, I noticed it in the church and I knew I had seen it before."

Sam rifled through the papers on the desk, upsetting the ones I had been reading, before he found what he was looking for, handing it to me.

He'd grabbed a tarot card which showed a priest holding a cross topped with another cross within a circle. I passed the card to Dean. The symbol honestly didn't mean much to me.

"A Tarot?"

"It makes sense. A tarot dates back to the early Christian era right, when some priests were still using magic? And a few of them veered into the dark stuff?" Sam was enthusiastic now, the clues tying together with the lore always brought a light into his eyes and an energy to his movements, "Necromancy and how to push death away, how to cause it?"

"So Roy's using black magic to bind the reaper?" I hadn't really got that feeling from him, he seemed genuinely good, seemed to truly believe that the Lord had chosen him to heal the sick. Black magic just didn't fit in to the picture of the kindly old man.

"If he is" replied Sam, digging again through the papers scattered across the desk, "he's riding the whirlwind. It's like putting a dog leash on a great white."

Dean stood, placed his cup in the sink and turned back to face us. "Ok, then we stop Roy."

"How?"

"You know how." Dean replied darkly.

"Wait, what the hell are you talking about Dean, we can't kill Roy."

"Sam, the guy's playing God; he's deciding who lives and who dies. That's a monster in my book."

"No. We're not going to kill a human being Dean. We do that we're no better than he is."

"Witches are humans too, Sam, and we've taken them out before." I pointed out. "But something about Roy binding a reaper doesn't seem right to me."

"You mean the part where he tells it who to kill?"

"No. Well, yes. But I mean, he doesn't seem the type, there's something very… innocent about him. I don't think he knows how he's doing it, he's simply delighted that he can help people."

"Ok, we can't kill Roy, we can't kill death." Dean groused, turning to Sam. "Any bright ideas, College Boy?"

"Ok. uh...If Roy-or someone else- is using some kind of black spell on the reaper, we gotta...figure out what it is. And how to break it."

* * *

We researched for the rest of the night, until I took a break to cook a decent, heart-friendly meal. Then we ate, researched a little more and eventually went to bed without knowing anything more about the details of binding reapers.

The next morning I met Layla at the coffee shop she'd mentioned on the phone the night before.

She was already there when I arrived and she smiled nervously at me in greeting as I ordered my hot chocolate to go. We exchanged small talk while we waited and once the drinks were served we left the shop, walking down the street in silence.

Layla led me towards a local park, the wooded paths and flower beds made for a pleasant walk in the sunny spells. After we'd walked for a while without seeing anyone Layla broke the silence between us.

"So, you mentioned a price that must be paid for healing, you said something about energy?"

I nodded, swallowing my mouthful of chocolate. "Yes, you're familiar with the first law of thermodynamics? Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only changed from one form to another. The healing energy that the body uses normally is taken so slowly that you don't really notice, but you do need more rest when you're sick or injured. When we use magic to heal, that energy exchange is accelerated, so you definitely notice it; it can actually be quite dangerous to use that much energy at once, that's why a lot of the time the person casting the healing spell will put forward their own energy to compliment the energy of the person being healed, so that neither person is completely drained by the process."

I paused in my explanation as a pair of joggers passed us. We walked a little way further before I spoke again. "In the case of a brain tumour, the cure usually requires surgery before healing can begin. What I would try to do is get you to the point where your body can take over and heal itself without further interference from the tumour." We skirted around a puddle. "I would give all of the energy for that, so that you could reserve your energy for your recovery."

"Would it work?" Her voice wobbled with something that sounded an awful lot like hope.

I stopped walking and turned to face her. "I don't know anything more than 'inoperable brain tumour' at the moment. I'd need to know more than that, you'd have to tell me what the doctors said, and I'd have to take a look myself."

She frowned, turning her head to the side and resembling the song birds that were pecking at the muddy ground behind her. "Take a look?"

"Don't worry, it's nothing invasive. All I'd need to do is touch you, that'll be enough for me to be able to sense more about what's wrong and where." I think it's another weird little thing about being prangeni; I eat pain, I can track pain, Deathcries make me feel sick, and if I have physical contact I can sense pain that the person isn't even aware of.

Sometimes it's low-level chronic pain that they don't really register anymore, other times they can't feel it due to nerve damage, either way I can't eat it, but I can still sense that it's there. There are no sensory nerves in the brain, so a brain tumour shouldn't cause the sufferer to feel much pain, but I would probably still be able to tell that it was there.

"Oh, um, okay." She held her hand out to me as if I might bite it.

I chuckled slightly and glanced around, this path was quiet, but people did come along every so often, and we could still hear the sounds of traffic and people passing along the road at the edge of the park. "I'd need somewhere a little more quiet to be able to sense everything I need to."

She withdrew her hand, looking around uncertainly.

"If you're not sure you want to be alone with the possibly crazy magic girl, I won't be offended." I laughed slightly at the guilty look on her face.

"Why do you want to help me?"

I paused; I hadn't really put any thought into my desire to help, not even when Dean had asked me almost exactly the same question. I just wanted to, so I did, it was as simple as that. "You're too young to die." I told her honestly. "And after being so helpless to save Dean; I guess I need to confirm that I'm not useless, that I can help people."

I kicked at a few pebbles as we walked in silence for a while, my eyes on the ground, trying not to let my emotions get the better of me. I startled when Layla placed a hand on my arm.

"Would my house be quiet enough?"

* * *

Layla's mother was out, though she'd be back to pick up Layla before the afternoon service, so we had the place to ourselves. Layla fluttered nervously, offering to take my coat and asking if I wanted anything to drink. I have to admit that she was starting to make me nervous too, but I did my best to stay calm. It'd be quite useless to have us both in a flap. I accepted the offer of a drink of water and took a seat in the living room while I waited. I took the chance to take a few deep breathes, feeling the air rush in through my nose, filling my lungs with the scent of the lavender potpourri on the coffee table, before breathing out, picturing my nerves as colourful little butterflies rushing out with every exhale.

I opened my eyes when the sofa sank under Layla's weight beside me. I accepted the glass of water and observed her quietly over the rim as I took a sip. She seemed calmer, still nervous, but less jittery. I placed the glass down on one of the mats scattered about the coffee table and twisted in my seat to face the girl.

"Are you ready?"

I held out my hand to her in offering and she swallowed nervously before placing her own hand in mine. I gave her an encouraging smile before I closed my eyes, reaching out with my senses.

She had stubbed her toe that morning; that was the first pain I became aware of. It was terribly faint, but still more apparent than the brain tumour. I passed over it and reached further, narrowing down on her head, on the lump that ought not to be there. There it was; quite large, and growing even as I watched, it was buried deep in her head, too deep presumably for the surgeons' scalpel to safely reach. I poked and prodded at it slightly with my mind, and Layla gasped slightly.

I withdrew from her pulling my hand away as I opened my eyes. "What is it?"

"I- I felt a shot of fear." She shuddered, rubbing her hands up and down her arms.

I frowned slightly; I think I've just discovered why the doctors thought it to be inoperable. "That's not good; fear is a part of the basic survival instincts. If this tumour has damaged a part of your brain that's responsible for basic survival…"

Her eye's widened then dropped to her lap. "The doctors said that it was a primary malignant tumour." She told me, "They said that even if they could operate, it's unlikely that they would be able to remove all of it without damage, without changing me. They have me on palliative care, they won't even try."

We sat in silence for a moment while I considered what she'd told me and what I'd sensed in her head. "They're not wrong. The treatment would be to remove all the cancerous cells, and it would leave quite a hole in your head." She sniffed and a few tears dropped off the end of her nose, but she made no move to wipe them away. "I have a much better chance of removing them all than a surgeon would have, you'd have a good chance of being cured of the cancer, assuming that whatever caused it in the first place doesn't cause it to return." She looked up at me, wiping her tears away. "But the hole that would be left behind? Layla, I don't know what that would do to you. It might remove your survival instincts, it might affect you in other ways. The body functions essential to survival, heartbeat and breathing and so on, are in another part of the brain, so I'm confident that those wouldn't be affected, but I don't know enough about the brain to make any assurances beyond that."

We sat in silence for a while longer, Layla staring at the glass of water sitting, un-drunk, on the table. Eventually I sighed, patting her hand as I stood. "You have a think. Be sure of what you want to do and let me know."

I was about half way to the door before a quiet voice stopped me in my tracks. "Do it."

I turned back, but didn't move, not yet. She looked up at me with fire in her usually quiet eyes. "If the doctors had offered me surgery, I'd have taken it. Even with the risk that it would change me, even with the risk that it wouldn't even cure me. You're offering me that same surgery, with a much higher chance of being cured. So do it. Help me."

I nodded. The relief in her face was instant, hope flickering like a light in the darkness. "So, how does this work?"

"I'll need to do a little research, now that I know what needs to be done, to work out exactly how I'm going to do it."

Most cures for cancer aim to remove the cancerous cells, either by surgery or by killing them with radiotherapy or with cancer-killing drugs. Actually removing the tumour would require a huge amount of energy, transforming matter into energy is pretty much just theoretical. Killing it and allowing her body to slowly flush out the dead cells was much more achievable.

But how to get all of them? I'd need a spell that targeted the cancerous cells specifically, because checking each cell individually, while theoretically possible, would be much too time consuming and utterly exhausting. Keeping focused enough to do that for more than just a few cells at a time would drain me. But maybe I only needed to do a few cells at a time? Identify and kill the tumour, then go back in and identify the surrounding cells that were cancerous and destroy them.

It was a rather 'blunt instrument' approach, which while it would no doubt prove effective, could quite possibly leave a larger hole in the poor girl's head than was required. No, something that could identify cancerous cells was far preferable; it would leave as many healthy cells in situ as possible. But how to achieve that? And how to kill them once they were identified? Perhaps I could draw the life force from them? My specialty is of course pain energy, but life and pain are closely linked, and the life energy drawn from the cancerous cells could be used to power the identification part of the spell. If I got this right it would self-power, not dissimilar to a nuclear reaction, and I could leave the spell working on her to catch any future cancers.

An interesting hypothesis. But could it be done?

At some point in my theorising I must have left Layla's house. I was brought out of my thoughts by the Impala as it pulled up beside me.

"Get in."

I opened the back door, sinking into the seat as I returned to my conundrum. "How can you identify cancer cells?"

Dean gave me a baffled look through the mirror as he pulled away from the curb, but Sam turned to face me with a frown on his face. "Usually a cancer cell with be deformed, you'd be able to see the difference under a microscope between a normal cell and a cancerous one. But different types of cancer in different tissue types will present differently, sometimes a single cell could be identified as cancerous or not, other times you'd need to see a bunch of them together to know for sure."

I thought about this, sinking slightly in my seat. It had been fairly easy to find the tumour earlier; it was something that wasn't meant to be there, there was no space for it to be where it was, it was crushing the surrounding brain. The cells themselves hadn't felt that different to me, though of course, I'd not been looking for identifying features after I'd found the tumour. Perhaps deeper research into brain tumours would give me an answer.

I filed the puzzle away in my mind for further analysis when I had the resources at hand to find answers instead of more questions and straightened in my seat.

"So, what's the word?"

"We got nothing more on how to bind a reaper. So we're heading back to Roy's place, see if we can't find any evidence there, a spell book or something." Sam informed me, turning back in his seat to face the front.

"You given any thought to the case we're meant to be working?" Dean asked, clearly still grumpy after discovering how Roy had saved him. "Or have you been too caught up in your new dedication to cancer research?"

"I think I might be able to save Layla." I told him cheerily. Sometimes the best way to deal with Dean in a bad mood is just to ignore it. "If I can just work out the mechanics of the spell then that's one less person for the good Reverend to save."

Dean made a grumbling noise under his breath that didn't actually contain any words and Sam turned back to face me. "That's great! This is why you were asking about cancer cells? What are you thinking?"

I explained my thoughts so far and the reasoning behind them. Sam agreed with me that the spell could possibly be made self-supporting and that we should work on it later. Our conversation was cut short as the Impala bumped over a pothole and we both turned to Dean in surprise that he would be so careless with Baby.

To be fair to him though, the road to the LeGrange church was more pothole than gravel and it looked rather impossible to avoid them all. We passed a sign that read 'Service Today' and exchanged ominous looks. We couldn't allow Roy to save anyone else; the cost was too high.

"If Roy's using a spell, there might be a spell book." Sam reminded us as we exited the car.

"See if you can find it." Dean checked his watch. "Hurry up too; the service starts in fifteen minutes. I'll try to stall Roy."

The man who'd been escorted away by the police the first time we were here handed Dean a leaflet. "Roy LeGrange is a fraud. He's no healer."

"Amen, Brother." Dean took the leaflet as we passed.

"You keep up the good work." Sam told him, patting him on the shoulder.

"Thank you." Came the somewhat surprised reply from behind us as we hurried on.

Sam split away to search the house while Dean and I joined the crowd entering the tent. Dean went right and I went left, canvasing the church before the Reverend arrived. Nothing was different to the last time we were here, and I couldn't see the reaper either.

I joined Dean in the back corner of the church, spotting Layla and her mother not far from where we were standing and made sure to keep my voice low. "Anything unusual?"

"Nothing I could see." His phone rang and he quickly pulled it from his pocket. "What have you got?"

"Roy's choosing victims he sees as immoral. And I think I know who's next on his list. Remember that protestor?" Sam's voice was almost too faint for me to hear through the phone.

"What, the guy in the parking lot?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll find him. But you can't let Roy heal anyone, alright?"

Dean hung up and we exchanged a wordless conversation. We'd been hunting together long enough to have a silent communication that came in very useful, and right now Dean was telling me to leave the tent, 'Go, help Sammy.' We passed each other, Dean heading further towards the front of the church, and I headed towards the exit at the back.

Roy's voice brought me to a halt not far from the exit. "Layla. Layla Rourke. Come up here child."

The crowd burst into applause, everyone seemed to know Layla and be pleased that it was finally her turn to be saved. But my stomach sunk in dread, I hadn't told her, hadn't warned her what the cost of Roy's healing was.

Layla was hugging her mother as I reached her side. "I love you, child." He mother pushed her towards the front of the church, her hands rising to cover her mouth as her eyes filled with tears of joy. I plastered a smile on my face and grabbed her arm, walking with her towards the Reverend.

"Layla, listen to me. You can't go up there."

"Why not? We've waited for months!" She pulled away from me slightly in surprise, but I gripped her arm a little tighter, trying to convey the urgency of what I was trying to tell her.

"You can't let Roy heal you. It's not a miracle like we thought, Layla. His magic works the same as mine, there's always a price to pay."

"I don't understand; Roy healed your brother didn't he? Why can't you let him try?"

"Cause if you do something bad is going to happen. I can't explain. We just need you to believe us." Dean joined us as we passed him.

"Layla, the price of a life is a life. Every time Roy heals someone, someone else dies."

We stopped a little short of where Sue Ann stood waiting, far enough to prevent her from hearing us over the noise of the crowd. Layla stared at me, at Dean, at her mother before looking back to me a little helplessly.

Sue Ann held out her hand. "Layla."

Layla looked between all of us one last time then focused on Dean as he gave a last plea for her to listen to us.

"I'm sorry." Layla walked away, Dean calling after her and the crowd cheering as she took Sue Ann's hand. I hurried to the back, Dean followed but stopped in the back corner, whereas I continued on, leaving the tent.

I could hear someone out in the carpark calling for help, but I knew Sam had that covered. The best thing I could do to help was to stop Roy. A tissue and a lighter fetched from my bag and I soon had a small torch of twisted paper in my hand. I bent, shoving the little flame under the flap of the tent next to some cables.

Arson isn't exactly fun, but it could clear a building like nothing else. Dean would take it from here. I took off towards the carpark, where a man's panicked voice was still calling for help.

Sam's height made him easy to spot after I'd jumped onto a car; being short definitely has it's disadvantages. I raced over to where I'd seen him.

The protestor was stumbling backwards away from the tall man with the pale grey skin who I'd last seen when Dean was healed. Sam was casting about, clearly unable to see the man. I stumbled to a halt in front of the reaper.

"Stop! It's not his time, you can't take him yet."

The reaper stopped, tilting its head to look at me with a curious expression. It only stopped for a moment though before it advanced again towards the man behind me.

I stumbled backwards, keeping my eyes on the reaper rather than watching where I was going. "Something's controlling you, some spell. We're trying to find out who it is, how to break it. We want to put things back to normal."

The reaper paused again, before he faded from sight. Sam's phone rang behind me and he answered quickly.

"David, I think it's okay." Sam told him.

"No!" the scream from behind me made me jump, turning in the air to face the man who was now scrambling back towards me.

"Dean it didn't work. The reaper's still coming!"

"Can you talk?" I hurried forward to address the reaper again. "Can you tell us who bound you? How to stop them?"

The reaper didn't even pause to acknowledge me this time; he simply stepped around me and reached for the man who had fallen, half frozen in terror behind me.

"I'm telling you, I'm telling you it didn't work. Roy must not be the one controlling this thing."

I didn't know what to do, reapers kill with a touch, I didn't want to risk touching it, but how could I prevent it from advancing if all I could do was talk, and it wasn't listening? How do I stop this thing?!

It bent, reaching for David. I don't know what to do!

The reaper stopped, looking confused, then he straightened, staring down at the man lying on the muddy ground at his feet, gasping for breath. Then the reaper turned away and vanished like mist.

"It's gone." I stared at where it had been.

Sam moved passed me to assist the shaky protestor. "I got you. I got you." He helped the man to his feet.

"Thank God."

* * *

There were crowds of people milling around the tent, which was only slightly singed from my small act of arson. Sam and I wound our way through them looking for our older brother.

We spotted him talking to Layla and stopped a little way away to give them privacy. She walked away from him and I stepped into her path.

"Layla, I'm sorry Roy isn't what we'd hoped. I can help you, I promise. Give me a day or two to tie the details down and I'll have a cure for you, I'm sure of it."

She didn't answer, just looked at me with disappointed eyes. Then she stepped around me and walked away.

I joined my brothers in time to overhear Reverend LeGrange talking to Mrs Rourke, promising a private session that night to heal Layla.

We'd only bought ourselves a small amount of time.

* * *

"So Roy really believes." Sam was sitting on the end of the bad in our motel room. I had appropriated his laptop for my research into the spell to heal Layla and was sitting in Sam's usual spot at the table.

"I don't think he has any idea what his wife's doing." I spoke up, getting a surprised look from Dean, who seemed to think that I was completely ignoring the case.

"Well, I found this." Sam drew a small, black book from his pocket and handed it to Dean, who flicked through the pages. "Hidden in their library. It's ancient. Written by a priest who went dark side. There's a binding spell in here for trapping a reaper."

"Must be a hell of a spell." Dean commented as I left my seat at the table to read over his shoulder.

"Yeah. You gotta build a black alter with seriously dark stuff. Bones, human blood." Sam shook his head. "To cross a line like that, a preachers wife. Black magic. Murder. Evil-"

"Desperate." Dean cut him off. "Her husband was dying, she didn't have anything to save him. She was using the binding spell to keep the reaper away from Roy."

"Cheating death, literally."

"Yeah but Roy's alive," Dean shut the book and handed it to me, "so why is she still using the spell?"

"Right. To force the reaper to kill people she thinks are immoral."

"May God save us from half the people who think they're doing God's work." Dean mumbled, and I nodded my agreement as I withdrew to the table, flicking through the book of dark magic.

"We gotta break that binding spell Dean."

Dean leant over my shoulder looking at the picture on the page I had the book open to. It depicted a priest with a cross like the one Sam had shown us on the Tarot. "You know Sue Ann had a coptic cross like this. When she dropped it the reaper backed off."

"So you think we gotta find the cross or destroy the alter?" Sam asked.

"Maybe both. Whatever we do we better do it soon, or he's healing Layla tonight."

* * *

It was night time when we rolled up to the field where Reverend LeGrange had his tent. We'd turned the lights off before turning in and kept the revs low, the engine purring quietly as we drove along the track, and Dean cut the engine completely as we got closer.

"That's Layla's car. She's already here." Sam said as we drew to a stop, indicating the car on the other side of the dark field.

"Yeah." Dean paused, his hand still on the keys, paused in the act of withdrawing them from the ignition. "You can save her, can't you, Ali?"

"Yes, Dean. I just need to work out the details of how exactly it's gonna work, and what I've gotta do to make it work. But I've got an approach to healing her, and I'm sure it's gonna work."

"In other words, you have nothing more than an idea. No spell. No cure." Dean's tone was cutting. I drew back from where I'd been leant forwards to talk to my brothers in the front seat. I didn't know any spells to heal cancer, healing in general is a rather obscure branch of magic. I was trying to invent a spell from scratch, yes it was taking time!

It's strange, now that I think about it, how few healing spells are out there. Maybe it's because historically magic seems to mostly have been used for selfish reasons. White magic is rather thin on the ground all around, and healing requires more magic than most other applications. Healing spells such as the one that Sue Ann uses aren't that uncommon, sacrificing someone else for the sake of the person you want to heal, but what I want to create for Layla is a spell where no innocents need to pay the price. That's fairly unusual in the lore.

"Dean, even if Ali's spell doesn't work, what are you gonna do? Let somebody else die to save her? You said it yourself Dean, you can't play God."

Dean didn't reply, just sat in silence for a moment, then pulled the keys from the ignition with a jerk and shoved them into his pocket, opening the door to leave the car. Sam and I followed without a word.

We approached the tent, carefully and quietly pulling the flap back to peek inside where Reverend LeGrange was speaking to Layla and her mother and a small group of other people.

"Where's Sue Ann?" Dean hissed, and I scanned the tent, not seeing the woman.

"House." Sam answered and we pulled back, carefully dropping the tent flap back into place.

We were nearing the house when I heard voices ahead. I grabbed Sammy and dragged him towards the bushes as Dean whispered after us. "Go find Sue Ann, I'll catch up."

"What are you gonna-?" Sam asked before I clapped a hand over his mouth, giving Dean a look over my shoulder. Telling him to be careful was kinda pointless, this was _Dean_.

"Hey!" Dean called out, catching the attention of two policemen coming down the porch steps. "You gonna put that fear of God in me?"

Dean had told us how he'd caught Sue Ann holding her cross necklace and muttering, how he'd stopped her and how she'd screamed for help. The policemen had responded and had warned Dean off after Sue Ann had decided not to press charges. These must be the same two cops because they dropped their coffees and ran towards my idiot older brother, who took off into the maze of parked cars and campervans.

Once the coast was clear Sam and I hurried up to the house. The front door was locked and the windows were shut. Then Sam paused, looking up at the house in confusion. I followed his line of sight, wondering what had caught his attention. It took a few moments before it hit me, the house was dark. If Sue Ann was inside, casting the spell to heal Layla, there should have been a light.

Sam leant over the railing of the porch, and then jumped over it to the ground below. I followed, landing catlike and silent after the quiet but distinct thud Sam's boots had made on the soil. Somewhere behind us a dog started to bark as Sam pulled open the hatch to the cellar.

Our boots tapped quietly on the wooden steps as we descended into the dimly lit cellar. Sue Ann was nowhere in sight as we approached the candlelit alter, littered with bits of dead animals, blood, horns, and assorted other unpleasantness. In the middle there was a black and white photo with the face crossed out with what looked like it might be blood. I peered over Sam's shoulder as he picked it up and sucked in a quick breath as I recognised Dean.

"I gave your brother life and I can take it away." Sue Ann's voice startled us, making us both jump and spin to face her.

Sam's face reflected his fury as he tipped the alter over, scattering the various items of black magic across the floor. I started after Sue Ann as she ran for the stairs. She was faster than me. She was slamming the doors shut when I reached the top of the stairs. They slammed open as I hit them.

Sue Ann fell backwards as I climbed from the cellar to stand above her. "Can't you see? The Lord chose me to reward the just and punish the wicked. And your brother is wicked and he deserves to die just as Layla deserves to live. It is God's will."

She scrambled backwards as Sam joined me. Neither of us quite sure what to do with the human woman on the ground before us. She pulled the cross necklace from beneath her clothes and gripped it between both hands, beginning to recite Latin. I launched myself towards the woman. Wresting the cross from her hands and snapping the chain around her neck. I threw it hard at the ground.

There was a sound of shattering glass and blood spilled from the cross. Sue Ann gasped, pushing me aside she knelt over the broken cross on the ground.

"My God, what have you done!"

"He's not your God." Sam told her, darkly.

I pulled myself to my feet as the reaper appeared. He smiled; the expression on his grey and heavily lined face making my stomach shrink. Sue Ann's terror was almost overpowering as she rose and tried to run.

The reaper was suddenly in front of her. He placed an old and withered hand on her head. She fell to her knees. The reaper was still smiling when a moment later he allowed her to fall to the ground.

She convulsed, and then lay very still. The Deathcry was sharp and piercing. It, coupled with the look of satisfaction on the inhuman face, was enough to force me to my knees.

Sam caught me as I fell. "No, come on. You can't be sick here." He told me, a hand under each of my arms as he dragged me away. "Best not to leave any evidence that she wasn't alone when she died."

He swung me up into his arms and I groaned at the movement, gripping my stomach and trying to force the nausea down. Sam carried me back to the Impala, I just closed my eyes and pushed my face into his shoulder, inhaling the comforting smell of gun oil and baby brother.

"What's wrong?" Dean's worried voice called out as we reached the car.

"Deathcry." Sam answered shortly. "Come on. We should get going."

"Hell of a week." Dean muttered as Sam lowered himself into the passenger seat, still cradling me in his lap. "You better not throw up in my Baby."

* * *

A few days more research and Sam and I had found a method of magically identifying cancer cells we were 99% certain would work. We'd also fine-tuned exactly how the spell would draw the life energy from the identified cells and subsequently become self-powering.

It ended up being easier to cast it on a charm than on the girl herself. I chose a plain silver chain with a small tag next to the clasp. It was very fiddly to scratch the required symbols onto the tiny tag, but eventually I got it done. Sam helped me cast the spell and then we would have to wait and see. Hopefully it would work and Layla would be clear of cancer as long as she wore the chain.

I hoped that the nondescript nature of the chain would mean that Layla would be comfortable with wearing it. She could put whatever pendant she wanted on it.

We dropped it off on the way out of town, encountering a rather bitter Mrs Rourke at the door. Layla explained that she'd gone back to Roy, but that nothing had happened. Her mother hadn't taken it well. She also told us that Sue Ann had been found dead of a stroke, she didn't mention the dark alter in the cellar, so either it hadn't been found, or it wasn't being publicised. Either way, I felt bad for Roy; he was a good man and didn't deserve any of this.

Layla accepted the chain with doubt clear in her eyes and I watched anxiously as she put it on. She didn't drop dead, so I took that to mean that the spell was identifying the correct cells and killing only them. She permitted me to touch her hand, poking around in her head again to check the spell's progress. The lump was still there, putting pressure on the surrounding tissue, but poking at it caused no reaction this time from Layla and I withdrew, happy that she would now recover.

We drove out of town listening to Kansas singing about Miracles Out Of Nowhere. No one spoke, no one needed to. The girl was saved, Dean was saved, David, the protestor, was saved.

But Marshall Hall and many others were dead who shouldn't be. You can't save everyone. It still stung though, every time we failed someone.


	14. Route 666

We had stopped at a petrol station in Kentucky, forced to a halt in our journey to Pennsylvania by roadworks causing closures. Sam and I had a map out, leaning over the bonnet of the car, taking turns to point out possible routes and debating the pros and cons of each. Dean had filled the tank and paid, but was now wandering away to answer his phone, I wasn't paying him much attention.

"Alright, Cassie, we'll come check it out." Or at least, I wasn't until I heard _that_.

I straightened, staring over my shoulder at my older brother. We hadn't spoken Cassie's name since leaving Ohio, and now she was phoning him? She'd better have a damn good reason, because if that bitch thinks that she can just play around with Dean's heart again, she's got another thing coming!

"Okay." Sam stood up with the map in his hand, still peering at it. "I think we've found a way we can bypass that construction just east of here. We might even make Pennsylvania faster than we thought."

Dean lowered the phone from his ear, looking at it in thought. "Yeah. Problem is; we're not going to Pennsylvania."

"We what?" Sam looked blankly between the two of us.

"I just got a call from an, uh, old friend. Her father was killed last night, think it might be our kind of thing." Dean avoided my eyes as he returned to the car.

"What?" Sam asked, echoing my own thoughts. Her father had died? I'd never met the man, and I was sorry for her loss, but it still didn't explain why she was calling us.

"Yeah. Believe me; she never would've called, never, if she didn't need us." Dean opened the driver's door and looked at Sam across the top of the car, still avoiding looking at me. "Come on, are you coming or not?"

* * *

 _I was sitting at the table in the motel room. My head bent over a lore book, trying to find whatever it was that we were hunting. Dad was out interviewing witnesses and Dean was outside the motel room, making a phone call. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, leaning against the Impala._

 _The car was far enough away, and Dean had shut the motel room door behind him, that I couldn't hear what the person on the other end was saying, but I still heard Dean just fine. I'm not sure that my family really understand just how much better than human my hearing is; I overhear lots of things that I wasn't really meant to._

 _Dean's voice had a smile in it, and I could picture it in my head, though my view through the window wasn't clear enough without turning my head to be able to make it out. It was nice to think of Dean smiling, it's been a rare enough thing since Sammy left for college last year._

 _That was what had diverted my attention from the lore book in front of me. If something was making my brother smile again, I wanted to know what it was._

 _He hung up and returned to the room. I wiped the smile off my face and did my best to pretend that I hadn't heard anything._

 _"Hey, I'm going out for a bit. Don't wait up." He grabbed his leather jacket from the bed and shrugged into it._

 _"What should I tell Dad if he asks where you are?"_

 _"Tell him I'm following up with one of the witnesses."_

 _"All night?" I smirked at him. "How_ very _dedicated of you."_

 _Dean blushed, his mouth opened and closed again before he found words. "Shut up."_

 _"Have fun." I called after him as he left, "Don't forget to use protection!" He slammed the door behind him._

 _Teasing my brothers is always fun, watching their ears turn red as the embarrassment grew, but I hadn't been able to tease Dean like this for a while, he'd been too hurt by Sam's departure. Which reminds me; I must call Sam soon._

* * *

We drove for a while without talking; Dean had immediately turned the music up too loud for that. We were cruising through the country side, a lake out one side, when the tape ended and Sam turned it down before turning to face Dean.

"By _old friend_ you mean...?"

"A friend that's not new."

"Oh, yeah, thanks." Sam snorted. "So what's her name?"

"Cassie."

"Cassie, huh? You never mentioned her…" He drifted off, clearly waiting for Dean to fill in the blanks.

"Didn't I?" There was a pause while Dean tried to avoid saying any more, and Sam sat and stared at him. "Yeah, we went out."

"You mean you dated somebody? For more than one night?" Sam questioned, in not unreasonable surprise.

"Am I speaking a language you're not getting here? We were working a job in Ohio, she was finishing up college. We went out for a couple of weeks." Dean's standard defense of sarcasm and attack had kicked in as a response to losing control of the situation and sharing too much with our nosy little brother.

"And...?" Sam prompted. When all the answer he got was a shrug he sighed and continued on. "Look, it's terrible about her dad, but it kinda sounds like a standard car accident. I'm not seeing how it fits with what we do. Which by the way, how does she know what we do?"

Again, Dean didn't answer, but the look on his face must have been answer enough. "You told her. You told her the secret! Our big family rule number one. We do what we do and we shut up about it. For a year and a half I do nothing but lie to Jessica, and you go out with this chick in Ohio a couple of times and you tell her everything?"

Dean stayed silent, staring straight ahead.

"Dean!"

 _Okay, that's enough._ "Sam!"

"Yeah. Looks like." Dean spoke at almost the same time as me, and Sam looked back and forth between us.

Dean, clearly done with the conversation, pressed his foot down on the accelerator, getting an answering growl from Baby's engine. I tried to silently communicate to Sam that he needed to drop it, _now_. I must have succeeded, because Sam did shut up. Although the bitchface made it quite clear that he wasn't happy.

* * *

 _Dad returned to the room, now fairly certain that we were hunting a ghost, though he didn't know whose. I closed the lore book, the information on subtypes of ghoul had been interesting at first but I'd been on the same page for the last hour, rereading the same paragraph and I still had no idea what it said._

 _I stood and stretched moving to the kitchen to start on dinner. Pasta carbonara maybe? With sausages? The sausages needed using._

 _"Where's Dean?"_

 _"He went to talk to one of the witnesses again." I pulled the sausages from the fridge and looked at the remaining contents. Inspiration did not strike._

 _"At ten at night? What's he really doing?"_

 _"I don't know, Dad." I pulled the ingredients for carbonara from the fridge and fetched a chopping board. "He said he was going to talk to a witness."_

 _"What the hell is that kid up to now?" He mumbled, staring out the window with his arms crossed._

 _"Does it matter, Dad? This is Dean. Dean, who hasn't done anything but hunt for the past year." I chopped the onion, perhaps a little too viciously. "Where ever he is, you can bet it's something to do with the case."_

 _The onions were a good excuse for why my eyes were watering, but maybe my tone was a little too bitter, because Dad turned to regard me. A calculating look on his face._

 _I sighed, halting my chopping and raising my eyes to the ceiling, talking to it rather than my critical and analytical father. "I'm worried about him, Dad. He's been so focused, trying to bury himself in hunting, taking more risks than normal. Ever since Sammy left, Dean's been…"_

 _I drifted off and there was silence for a moment before Dad turned back to the window, talking to it the same way I had to the ceiling. "It was Sam's choice to leave, no one forced him."_

 _That wasn't really true of course; there'd been a massive argument. Sam had worked his arse off getting that scholarship to Stanford. It was his dream and he was excited to go, and proud of his achievement. Dad was just scared, scared of what might happen to Sam if we weren't around to protect him. He'd reacted to his fear with anger, rather than the pride that Sam had hoped for, and Sam had shouted back. Dean and I had pretty much just sat there in shock, caught between pride in our brother, sadness that he would be leaving and increasing horror at the things the two were shouting at each other._

 _Eventually Dad had issued the ultimatum, and Sam had accepted, grabbed his bag and walked out. Dean watched Sam go, rose to follow him, and then heeded Dad's order to stay sat at the table. I'd ignored the order, running after my baby brother. He was halfway out of the parking lot by the time I caught up with his long strides. I managed to calm him down a little, and then I walked back into the motel and told Dean I needed to borrow the car. He handed me the keys without a word and I drove to Stanford with Sam. We turned our phones off for the trip, knowing that Dad would be enraged when he realised what we'd done._

 _Dean had been almost unresponsive after his anger at being deprived of Baby for over a week had faded. He'd given nods and monosyllabic responses where absolutely necessary. Even Dad had noticed his despondency. He hadn't really done anything about it though, just didn't press for Dean to talk any more than he wanted to._

 _I didn't press either; I just filled the gaps with idle chatter and made sure to give him lots of cuddles. Dean would never admit that he likes cuddles, but he does. He'd come back to life slowly, but he'd still been clearly unhappy until today. Today he had laughed and smiled. Yeah, I was a little frustrated with being left to research alone, but I'm glad Dean was off somewhere, doing something that made him happy, just like Sam was._

 _It was about damn time._

* * *

We pulled into town and headed for an office building, presumably the address that Cassie had provided. I followed my brothers through the doors, noting the signs announcing it to be the offices of the local newspaper.

"Two black people were killed on the same stretch of road in the same way in two weeks." An older man's voice was saying as we entered the office. I craned around my much taller brothers, curious to know what was happening.

"Jimmy, you're too close to this. Those guys were friends of yours." An older white man spoke to a black gentleman of about the same age. He turned to address a young woman, about Dean's age. "Again, Cassie, I'm very sorry for your loss."

The man left, we stepped aside to allow him to pass. The other man left too, presumably to an office within the building and Cassie sighed, turning and noticing us she stared straight at my big brother. "Dean."

I hadn't met her back in Ohio, so I took the chance to get the measure of her now. She was very pretty, with curly black hair that fell to her shoulders and a tired expression in her dark eyes. She was very slight of build and dressed smartly in office clothes. There was something about her eyes, despite the weariness, a sort of stubborn fire, a fierceness that shouldn't have surprised me; she was just Dean's type.

"Hey Cassie."

They stared at each other for a long moment, not speaking. Sam watched, smiling to himself and I watched all of them, not smiling.

Eventually Dean cleared his throat. "This is my brother Sam and my sister Alison."

Cassie smiled at Sam, who smiled back, and at me. I didn't return the smile and her own faltered before she turned back to face Dean, now shifting a little where she stood.

"Sorry about your dad." Dean elbowed me in the side, silently telling me to cut it out.

"Yeah. Me too." They continued to stare at each other. _If she ends up hurting him again, I'll feed her to whatever killed her father myself._

* * *

 _Dean returned to the room the next morning, an absent-minded smile on his face._

 _"If you want me to keep covering for you, you need to start bringing me hot chocolate."_

 _His smile fell a little. "What did Dad say?"_

 _"Not much." I told him as I stood, gathering my jacket and my bag. "You need to take me to the library to research local ghosties. We can get breakfast on the way."_

 _It was hardly the first time that Dean had stayed out at night with a girl, rather than return to the motel room. It happened much more often than Dad was aware of. Dean trusted me to take care of Sam, and if Dad wanted a say, he could damn-well stick around a bit more often. Most of the time Dean had the good manners to either sneak in quietly while we were sleeping, or to wait until a decent hour of the morning to return. Not that I ever slept through anyone entering the motel room._

 _It's something we worried about with Sam off at college by himself; who was keeping watch at night? Dean and I had both trained ourselves to be very light sleepers, awakened by the slightest noise. Though if you put either of us in the back seat of the car we'd sleep like babies. These days Dean often drives long distances, so I sleep in the car and then remain alert when we get to the motel room, allowing Dean to get some decent rest. I just have to remember to keep my knitting needles from clicking, so I don't wake him._

 _Dean bought me breakfast, the smile drifting across his face frequently throughout our meal. He sang along loudly to the music in the car, and even continued to hum to himself as we flicked through the archives of the local papers, looking for obituaries. I smiled to myself, observing my brother discretely from across the desk. It was just so good to see him happy again._

* * *

Cassie had invited us back to her house, citing the office as not being the place to discuss our work, and we were now settled on sofas in the lounge of the large country house, while Cassie brought a tray of refreshments. "My mother's in pretty bad shape. I've been staying with her. I wish she wouldn't go off by herself. She's been so nervous and frightened. She was worried about dad-"

"Why?" Dean interrupted.

Cassie poured tea from the pot into four cups. "He was scared. He was seeing things."

"Like what?"

"He swore he saw an awful-looking, black truck following him." She added cream and sugar.

"A truck." Sam questioned. "Who was the driver?"

"He didn't talk about a driver. Just the truck." Cassie handed out the tea cups. "He said it would appear and disappear. And, in the accident, Dad's car was dented, like it had been slammed into by something big."

"Thanks." Sam took a cup with a smile before turning serious again. "Now you're sure this dent wasn't there before?"

Dean accepted the tea cup as if it were a cursed object, looking around and quickly finding a side table to abandon it on. I smirked but no one else seemed to notice.

"He sold cars. Always drove a new one. There wasn't a scratch on that thing. It had rained hard that night. There was mud everywhere. There was a distinct set of muddy tracks leading from dad's car...leading right to the edge, where he went over." She ducked her head, taking a few deep breathes. "One set of tracks. His."

"The first was a friend of your fathers?" Dean asked.

"Best friend." She confirmed. "Clayton Soames. They owned the car dealership together. Same thing. Dent. No Tracks. And the cops said exactly what they said about dad. He 'lost control of his car.'"

"Can you think of any reason why your father and his partner might be targets?" I asked, taking a small sip of the tea. It wasn't bad actually; the cream made it much richer than the dried milk sachets you often find in motel rooms.

"No." She shook her head.

"And you think this vanishing truck ran them off the road?" I pressed.

She avoided my eyes, "When you say it aloud like that...listen, I'm a little skeptical about this...ghost stuff...or whatever it is you guys are into."

Dean snorted, "Skeptical. If I remember, I think you said I was nuts."

"That was then." She stared at him for a moment. "I just know that I can't explain what happened up there. So I called you."

Steps on the front porch preceded the door opening, and a middle aged woman entered. We all rose to our feet, Cassie stepping forwards to greet the woman. "Mom. Where have you been I was so..."

The woman stopped short at the sight of us, appearing harried. "I had no idea you'd invited friends over."

"Mom, this is Dean, a...friend of mine from... college. And his siblings Sam and Alison."

"Well, I won't interrupt you." She made to leave, taking off her scarf and coat.

"Mrs Robinson. We're sorry for your loss. We'd like to talk to you for a minute if you don't mind?" Dean called, trying to be as gentle as he could.

The woman appeared affronted, though Dean had been perfectly polite in both word and tone. "I'm really not up for that right now."

* * *

 _The smiles and humming continued for the rest of the day, until Dean disappeared that evening. He was back the next morning with a hot chocolate for me and his smile firmly in place. I raised an eyebrow at him as I accepted the beverage and offered him the lucky charms. We'd not found a likely suspect for our ghost the day before, so we were headed back to the library, and the prospect of another day cooped up with dusty old books would usually have made Dean irritable at best. But now he was humming to himself as he poured the milk into his bowl._

 _We didn't talk as we ate and prepared to leave the motel. But I was no longer hiding my observation of him and his happiness was catching; I found myself singing along with him in the car. We settled in the library at the same table as before and Dean set to work. Or appeared to at least._

 _He'd been smiling down at the same page of that newspaper for a good five minutes before I broke the silence. "So, what's her name?"_

 _He startled, staring at me with wide eyes, almost as if I'd caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. "Who?"_

 _"The girl who's got you singing along to The Beach Boys with me, instead of complaining like you usually do." It really wasn't often Dean let me play my music in the car; my tastes ran a little earlier than his, stuff from the fifties and sixties, the things I remember my mum listening to._

 _"You played the music, Ali." He raised his eyebrow at me._

 _"And you were in a sufficiently good mood to not only allow it, but also to sing along. So I ask again; what's the name of the girl who's making you so happy?"_

 _He shifted in his seat, dropping his eyes to the newspaper in front of him and blushing slightly. "Cassie. Her name is Cassie."_

* * *

The next morning dawned clear and crisp and bright. Thick frost, or perhaps a light dusting of snow, covered the ground and our breath formed visible puffs of steam in the cold air. We'd woken to a phone call from Cassie, saying that there had been another accident overnight, her friend Jimmy this time, and we were heading to meet her at the scene of the accident.

I was still grumpy because of the early start, and because I still don't trust Cassie or want her anywhere near Dean. I wrapped my arms around myself as we got out of the car, the cold morning doing nothing to improve my mood.

The same elderly white gentleman who'd been in the newspaper offices yesterday was speaking to Cassie as we approached. "Close the main road? The only road in and out of town? Accidents do happen Cassie, and that's what they are. Accidents."

"Did the cops check for additional denting on Jimmy's car, see if it was pushed?" Dean asked as we came to a halt behind the girl.

"Who's this?" The man eyed us warily.

"Dean, Sam and Alison Winchester. Family friends. This is Mayor Harold Todd."

The mayor nodded in greeting before answering Dean's question. "There's one set of tire tracks. One... doesn't point to foul play."

"Mayor, the police and town officials take their cues from you." Cassie pressed. "If you're indifferent about-"

"Indifferent!"

She folded her arms over her chest, "Would you close the road if the victims were white?"

"You suggesting I'm racist Cassie? I'm the last person you should talk to like that."

"And why is that?"

"Why don't you ask your mother." The mayor said in a low voice before turning and walking away.

* * *

 _Dean and I found the murder in the local paper; 1876, a woman had murdered her husband after finding that he'd been unfaithful. Not that the paper had reported it that way, they'd skated over the man's infidelity, but it was there between the lines if you knew to look for it. The ghost's MO was what tipped us off that we'd found our guy, he was recreating his own death, killing others who were unfaithful. We'd initially thought that it was the wife, but after serving her jail time, she'd remarried and lived to old age, dying peacefully in her sleep; not the kind of death that was common for restless spirits. The rather gruesome murders however were almost an exact copy of how the husband had died, and his grave was in an area of the graveyard that had recently been vandalised, which would explain why the spirit was acting up now._

 _We'd copied down the information, then high-fived and left the library in relief. The old newspapers we'd spent the last few days combing through hadn't been stored very well and reeked of mildew. We'd stopped at a dinner to pick up food on the way back to the motel and Dean had received a phone call. He left me queuing for food and stepped outside to answer, but I already knew who was calling him. He'd smiled when the number had come up on his phone; clearly it wasn't Dad._

 _He was back by the time I'd reached the front of the queue and he paid for the two burgers and milkshakes. Then he sent me back to the motel alone._

 _Clearly this Cassie of his was free this evening and he'd rather spend time with her than me and Dad, digging up and burning an old corpse. I honestly can't say I blame him._

 _I trudged back to the motel, thinking about my older brother and his new found happiness. We were only in town for the job. We'd solved the case, so we'd be leaving in a few days. This Cassie wouldn't be coming with us. Would they try to make it work long distance? Would we be making stops at colleges in both California and Ohio every time we passed that way? Or would they call it a holiday romance, each parting with fond memories and melancholy moods?_

 _I'm not sure I can imagine Dean being melancholy; both happy for the good times, and sad but accepting that they're over._

 _Dad was back when I got back to the motel, rereading a mortician's report. I hope that hasn't turned his stomach, it wasn't exactly dinnertime reading, even by our standards. I joined him at the table, presenting him with both the burger (now slightly cold) and the information we'd dug up in the library._

 _Dad grunted his appreciation, "Where's Dean?"_

 _"He took off to spend some time kids his own age." I didn't really have a clue where he was or what he was doing (or I just really didn't want to think about it) but I figured Cassie was probably his age, so it wasn't a complete lie._

 _"He should be focused on the case." Dad managed to make drinking a milkshake look angry. You've got to respect the man for how goddamn intimidating he can be when he wants. The effect on me wore off several years ago though, so I answered him coolly._

 _"All that's left to do is desecrate the grave. This part of the hunt is never exciting, Dad. We'll manage just fine without him."_

 _He glared at me and repeated the angry milkshake drinking._

 _"For goodness sake, Dad! It's good for him to be socialising with normal people! He's a human-being, not a 'hunter-being'; let him have a night off!"_

 _Dad was still glaring but I rose from the table, throwing the burger wrappers in the trash and turning back to imitate him and his milkshake-anger._

 _I don't think I pulled it off._

* * *

We needed more information on Jimmy's death. And particularly on whether he'd been afraid of a big scary truck before he'd been offed. We'd discussed it all the way back to the motel after leaving Cassie, who'd not been able to tell us much more than we could see for ourselves.

It was just as she'd described the other scenes; dented car looking like it had been run off the road, and only the one set of tracks. I'd not been able to get very close, the deathcry had been nauseating. They're always so much worse when the person who died was afraid.

The boys were changing into suits to go and talk to Ron Stubbins, a friend of Jimmy's that Cassie thought might be able to answer our questions. I would be staying here, as per usual.

Sam picked up his jacket, carefully not looking at Dean. "I'll say this for her: she's fearless."

Dean stared straight into the mirror where he was fixing his tie. "Mmm-hmm."

Sam, apparently emboldened by the lack of aggression, grinned and pushed on. "Bet she kicked your ass a coupla times."

Dean glanced at him but didn't comment, and Sam went on, not even trying to hide his amusement. "What's interesting is you guys never really look at each other at the same time. You look at her when she's not looking, she checks you out when you look away. It's just a...just an interesting observation in a...you know...observationally interesting way."

"You think we might have more pressing issues here?" Dean had clearly had enough.

"Hey, if I'm hitting a nerve." Irritating little brother. Complete with that all-knowing smirk.

"Let's go." Dean turned and walked away. Sam snickered and made to follow him and I pulled a balled up receipt from my pocket and launched it at the back of his head. He turned back to me, running his hand through the too-long curls. I gave him a look and he rolled his eyes at me before following Dean out of the room.

I grabbed a pillow off one of the beds before settling at the table, those wooden chairs were unbelievably uncomfortable, especially for something that's designed to be sat on! I pulled Sam's laptop towards me and started it up, he'd been refusing to tell us the password, but it really wasn't too difficult to guess. I phoned Bobby while waiting for it to boot, there was no news on Dad since we'd heard from him before the scarecrow case. He hadn't even replied to my messages about Dean being electrocuted, though I _had_ left a second message with the good news that he was better, so maybe that was case closed in Dad's mind.

We chatted for a while about the case, neither of us really sure what we were dealing with, the dents being the only solid evidence that these men hadn't simply crashed their cars. Though the fact that they'd all crashed along the same stretch of road within such a short time was certainly suspicious, it didn't necessarily point to anything in our department.

Eventually we hung up and I started searching the web for anything similar, local superstitions, local history, anything really, since I didn't actually know what I should be looking for. The hours passed slowly, and the chair turned my rear numb even with the pillow.

* * *

 _Dad and I dug up the grave, burned the bones and filled it back in without incident. It was a rather boring night in truth. Especially with Dad not really talking, not that he was ever very chatty._

 _We got back to the motel in the early hours of the morning and I fell into bed, aching all over. I run a lot, and have good endurance for that, but the work involved in digging graves is rather different; the muscles in my arms and shoulders were aching and my lower back and the backs of my thighs were sore from the hunched position I'd adopted for digging. I don't know how Dad does it; he's significantly older than me, and being larger has more issues with the ground being further away. To be fair, I can detect more pain than he's letting on, but it's not enough for me to intervene and I fall asleep quickly._

 _The next morning, the aches were so much worse. And I groaned, rolling over to note that Dad was up and about, and there was still no sign of Dean._

 _I pulled myself out of bed and into the shower, the lukewarm water not doing as much for my aching muscles as I had hoped. I hobbled over to the table, accepting the cup of chocolate Dad passed me and ignoring the look on his face; the 'this is why we don't let you hunt' look. This isn't the reason, my slow reaction times are the reason; I'd get myself killed fairly quickly out in the real world._

 _I sat, wincing at the tightness in my legs and back as I twisted in my seat, trying to stretch out the muscles. "You know, Dad, I've been thinking."_

 _"Don't strain yourself." He mumbled. I chose to pretend he was talking about stretching, rather than my mental capacities._

 _"We're fairly certain that we got our guy last night. But it's all fairly circumstantial evidence. I mean, just because the wife died of old-age, doesn't necessarily mean she went peacefully, she could be the ghost. And there's an outside chance that we're not dealing with a ghost at all, just a local history-buff/psychopath. We should stick around for a while, check that no more bodies show up with their balls-"_

 _"It's got to be a ghost, men where killed inside locked houses. No sign of forced entry."_

 _"So, they've got a lock-pick. So have I; a locked door wouldn't stop me if I wanted to kill somebody, Dad."_

 _He glowered at me for a while over his coffee, then nodded. "One week."_

 _He stood, leaving the room while dialing a number into his mobile phone. No doubt contacting somebody about getting a resupply of ammo, he was experimenting with mixing rock-salt with shot-gun shells to dispel spirits. I finished my chocolate, rose from the table with a groan and moved through a few stretches before returning to bed to hopefully sleep through some of the recovery time._

* * *

The boys had been gone about an hour and I'd learned all about the founding of the town; riveting stuff. The sound of the key in the lock caused my eyes to pop open and my head to shoot up, Sam entered and grinned at me. "Having fun?"

"Screw you, Sammy. What you got for me?" I resolutely turned away from the laptop, avoidance is definitely my friend today.

Dean, entering after Sam, gathered clothes and headed for the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Sam dropped the key on the table and sat on one of the beds, pulling at his tie. "Dean reckons we might be dealing with a ghost truck, a little like the Flying Dutchman-"

"A ghost manifesting as a truck? What makes him think that?"

"There was a truck in the '60's linked to a bunch of unsolved murders. All black men."

"Unsolved murders? Well that ought to have made the local paper, I'll look it up." I turned back to the laptop and opened a new tab, searching for the local paper archives, although if I'm lucky it won't be available online; I'd have to go to the library and leave this miserable little room and its unforgiving chairs for a while.

The bathroom door opened and Dean emerged, looking more comfortable in his regular clothes. "Alright, I'm going to talk to Cassie. Catch you later."

We each acknowledged Dean's departure just as I found the online archives, _darn it_.

"So," Sam leant forwards, leaning his elbows on his knees. "This Cassie dumped him?"

I stopped what I was doing, Dean had told Sam? "What did he say?"

"Not much," Sam admitted, "but he didn't deny being in love with her, or that she dumped him."

He gave me his best open 'tell me more, you can trust me' face. The one that used to get him one-on-one tuition from teachers all through school, and no doubt worked well on freaked out witnesses. I sighed, turning to face him and leaning forwards to mirror his position.

How much should I tell him? It's Dean's business, not ours, how much does being his family entitle us to know? I know because I was there at the time, I held him together in the fall out, but if I hadn't been there, would Dean want me to know? Would he want Sam to know? Would he consider my telling Sam to be a betrayal?

On the other hand, Sam was a nosy little shit when he wanted to be; he'd find out somehow and better that I told him and could control exactly what he learned, than he went and made a nuisance of himself. "We were working a job in Ohio, a string of particularly nasty murders which we eventually worked out was a ghost. Cassie was a witness to one of the earliest bodies to drop. She and Dean must have hit it off, because he went back to 'question' her several times. Always came back with this grin on his face." I shook my head, smiling slightly as I remembered the kinda star-struck look he'd sometimes had. "Anyway, he started spending more and more time with her, especially as we wrapped up the case and Dad prepared to leave town. I managed to persuade Dad to stick around for another week after we'd burned the bones. But by the end of it, Dad was berating Dean for loosing focus, not that Dean seemed to care much, he was pretty much on cloud nine and nothing could bring him down. Until the end of the week. He told her." I looked up at Sam, remembering what he'd said about having to lie to Jessica and wanting to hear my words, to understand why it'd been important that he lie. "He told her what we do, why he had to leave. And she told him he was crazy. She dumped him."

I paused, watching Sam's eyes as my words sunk in. I could see the cogs whirring, watch him put himself and Jess in that situation and come to the same conclusion I had; hunters don't get happy endings, not really. "He came back the motel looking like he'd never smile again and we left about half an hour later. Dad never mentioned it again and Dean was real quiet for a while. He got better slowly, killing things seemed to help. We haven't spoken her name again until she phoned him about this case."

I turned back to the computer, searching for unsolved murders in the '60's, and Sam remained silent behind me.

* * *

 _It was five days since we'd burned the guy's bones and no more bodies had dropped. Not that I was all that surprised, the reason I'd given Dad for wanting to stay was complete bull after all. Dad and I had used the time well and pretty much nailed the new salt rounds. I was back in the motel room after a day's successful testing, cleaning the shot-guns we'd used and hoping Dad would get back soon with food._

 _The door opened and Dean slouched into the room, slamming the door behind him and tossing himself face first into the bed. He grunted and pulled half a shotgun out from underneath himself and tossed it down towards the foot of the bed. I placed the shotgun I'd been pulling through on the floor and lay down on my side facing my older brother, rubbing a hand up and down his back._

 _I don't know what had happened but he was radiating hurt, and his shoulders were slumped, defeated, his face hidden. "You wanna talk about it?"_

 _"No." The word was mumbled into the pillow but it was clear enough to understand, so I said no more. We lay like that, Dean hiding his face and me rubbing his back and occasionally stroking his hair until he sighed and turned to face me. His beautiful green eyes glistened with tears that he would never allow me to see fall and they were red and slightly swollen. "She said I'm crazy. I told her about us, Ali. Told her why we're leaving soon and she said I'm crazy."_

 _I pulled him towards me and let him hide his face on my shoulder, stroking his hair and ignoring the dampness that was seeping into my jumper. He wrapped an arm around me and we lay in silence until Dad returned._

 _Dean sat up, wiping at his face and not making eye contact. "Hey, Dad? Can we leave town yet?"_

 _Dad dropped the food bag he was holding in Dean's lap and he and I started packing our bags, gathering the half-cleaned shotguns and assorted other weapons from around the room. We were gone in ten minutes._

* * *

Sam and I hadn't had much luck with finding anything on a truck from the '60's, but a search for unsolved murders brought up a string of murders in 1962 and into '63. The reports were small, barely more than a passing acknowledgement of the deaths. It did mention that the men were black, and that the deaths had been declared unnatural causes, but most of the reports didn't even call it murder. I don't remember much from the early sixties, and I was too young to really be aware of racism at the time, but I know looking back that it wasn't uncommon, especially in small towns.

I widened the search parameters slightly and found an unsolved disappearance of a white man named Cyrus Dorian and an unsolved arson attack on a local church. There was nothing about a truck in any of the articles in the paper going back even to a few months before the attacks had started. Eventually we gave up on our search, rubbed our tired eyes and glanced at the clock. Dean wasn't back yet, and it was almost midnight. We shrugged and headed to bed.

The next morning I woke early and pulled on my trainers and running shorts. The morning air was crisp and cold, burning my lungs as I ran. It felt good though, the burn, like it was clearing my head. Clearing out the cobwebs, as the saying goes. I increased my speed as my muscles warmed up and headed away from town down a pleasant country road lined by trees and open fields on either side. I stayed on the road, not wanting to deal with muddy shoes, and was happily jumping over and into piles of leaves, skirting around them or crashing straight through as the fancy took me, laughing into the silence of the morning when something caught my eye and I stopped short.

The silence of the morning was suddenly ominous, the cold seeming to creep into my soul as the deathcry struck me and at the same time I recognised the body of the Mayor.

I turned and staggered back the way I had come, retching slightly as I picked up speed. I was sprinting now. It was only about a mile to the motel and I made it in under ten minutes, bursting through the door and startling Sam awake.

He sat bolt upright in bed, staring at me with wide eyes. He was unarmed, some part of my brain noted; I'd have to reprimand him about that later.

I left the door open, doubling over and gasping for breath. "Ali! What-" The nausea hit me again and I groaned before stumbling into the bathroom. I was cold and shaking all over, my skin wet and clammy, still pink from my run in places, pale white in others. I braced a hand against the back of the toilet, sufficiently familiar with motel cleanliness not to want to touch it anywhere else, and leant over it, wrapping my other arm around my stomach, which felt like it was rolling within me.

"Ali? What happened?" Sam had followed me into the bathroom and was wetting the washcloth I had knitted, preferring to bring my own rather than use the motel linens. He handed it to me and I rubbed it over my face, closing my eyes for a moment, then opening them again as the world felt like it was tilting.

"Deathcry." I told him, between heavy breathes. "Fresh."

He pulled me in for a hug, rubbing a warm hand up and down my arm. I calmed slightly, his familiar scent, warmth and strength comforting, though my stomach still felt as though it were trying to escape, and the dizziness returned every time I closed my eyes.

"The Mayor's dead. About a mile outside town." I mumbled into his shoulder, "I didn't stick around to find out how. We should call the police, report it."

Sam got me settled in bed with a glass of water on the bedside table before he phoned the police, pretending to be an official of some sort (I wasn't paying attention), and told them that he'd found the body on his morning run. He arranged to meet them there and called Dean telling him what I'd found and arranging to meet him there too.

He made sure I had water, my phone was charged and within reach, and fetched some plain salted crisps for me, fussing more than a little before he finally left. I smiled at him; my baby brother trying to be just like his big brother, it was really very cute.

* * *

Sam sent me updates by text message throughout the day. So I knew that the phantom truck had run the mayor over, but that both the location, a private road, and the victim, a white man, didn't fit the pattern.

Later I learned that the Mayor had bought the old Dorian house and had demolished it, the killings started the next day.

The boys returned at lunch time, waking me from a light doze. I was still feeling pretty miserable, but smiled when Dean handed me a bowl of porridge with a look of deepest sympathy. Dean doesn't think much of porridge, though I quite like it. Which is lucky, I guess, since it's just about all I can keep down when I'm suffering from the effects of a deathcry like this.

My brothers were quiet for the rest of the day, staying close to me and discussing the case in low voices. I dozed on and off through the day, there was nothing to be done but wait until the sickness passed.

Night had fallen outside, lamplight glowing on the thin layer of snow that had fallen during the day. I was beginning to feel a little better after a second bowl of porridge, flavoured with cinnamon and honey this time, and was sitting up leaning against Sam's shoulder as we watched a film when Dean's phone rang.

He answered and we could all hear Cassie's terrified voice screaming his name over the line. We were pulling on boots and jackets and out the door; me with clothes in hand, knowing there'd be time to dress in the car. Dean was trying to get Cassie to calm down, tell him what was going on as the car skidded a little on the frozen ground, racing from the motel car park.

* * *

The ghost truck was gone by the time we arrived, and Cassie and her mother, though both quite shaken, were unharmed. I made cups of tea and handed them out, not bothering with one for Dean, who doesn't really like tea.

Cassie's hands were shaking as she accepted the cup. "Maybe you could throw a couple of shots in that." She joked with a weak smile.

"You didn't see who was driving the truck?" Sam pressed.

She shook her head, "It seemed to be no one. Everything was moving so fast. And then it was just gone." She turned to Dean with wide eyes, "Why didn't it kill us?"

Dean seemed a little unwilling, but did provide the answer, "Whoever was controlling the truck wants you afraid first."

"Mrs Robinson," Sam turned to the shaking woman, who was ignoring the cup of tea I'd placed at her elbow, "Cassie said that your husband saw the truck before he died."

"Mom?" Cassie prompted when she didn't answer at first.

"Oh. Martin was under a lot of stress. You can't be sure about what he was seeing."

"Well after tonight I think we can be reasonably sure he was seeing a truck." Dean leant forwards in his seat next to Cassie on the sofa. "What happened tonight, you and Cassie are marked. Okay? Your daughter could die. So if you know something now would be a really good time to tell us about it."

"Dean..." Cassie chided as her mother sobbed slightly before answering.

"Yes. Yes, he said he saw a truck."

"Did he know who it belonged to?" Sam asked, somewhat more gently than Dean.

"He thought he did." She nodded, taking deep careful breaths.

"Cyrus Dorian?" I asked quietly. It must be; the deaths in the '60's ended after Cyrus' disappearance and started again after his family home was demolished.

"Cyrus Dorian died more than 40 years ago." She stared at me with widened eyes, tears starting to fall.

Dean pulled the printed out article from his pocket, scanning it before frowning at the crying woman. "How do you know he died, Mrs Robinson? The paper's said he went missing. How do you know he died?"

"We were all very young." Her voice was high and wavering slightly as she tried to control her tears. "I dated Cyrus a while, I was also seeing Martin...in secret of course. Inter-racial couples didn't go over too well back then. When I broke it off with Cyrus and when he found out about Martin, I don't know, he, changed. His hatred. His hatred was frightening."

"The murders." Sam made the connection.

Mrs Robinson nodded and her voice rose another half octave. "There were rumours. People of colour disappearing into some kind of a truck. Nothing was ever done. Martin and a... Martin and I, we were gonna be, uh, married in that little church near here, but last minute we decided to elope as we didn't want the attention."

"And Cyrus?" Dean asked.

"The day we set for the wedding, was the day someone set fire to the church. There was a children's choir practising in there." The last few words were choked out through her sobs as she buried her face in her hands. "They all died."

There was a moment of quiet, broken only by Mrs Robinson's crying before Sam asked softly, "Did the attacks stop after that?"

"No!" She choked out, taking a deep breath to compose herself before she went on. "There was one more. One night that truck came for Martin. Cyrus beat him something terrible. But Martin, you see, Martin got loose. And he started hitting Cyrus and he just kept hitting him and hitting him." Her eyes were glazed, seeing another time, another place, something she'd never been able to forget.

"Why didn't you call the cops?" Dean asked.

She looked at him with the sort of exasperation that people have for a child's innocence when they think that the world ought to be a fair place. "This was forty years ago. He called on his friends, Clayton Soames and Jimmy Anderson, and they put Cyrus' body into the truck and they rolled it into the swamp at the end of his land and all three of them kept that secret all of these years."

"And now all three are gone." Sam concluded.

"And so is Mayor Todd." Dean pointed out. "Now he said that you of all people would know he is not a racist. Why would he say that?"

Mrs Robinson nodded. "He was a good man. He was a young deputy back then investigating Cyrus' disappearance. Once he figured out what Martin and the others had done he..." she shrugged, "he did nothing, because he also knew what Cyrus had done."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Cassie asked, her voice small, but firmer than it had been.

"I thought I was protecting them." Her mother answered. "And now there's no one left to protect." She broke down into sobs again.

"Yes there is." Dean said firmly, turning to look at Cassie. Mrs Robinson followed his gaze and Cassie shifted slightly, uncomfortable under the attention.

* * *

The night was dark and cold and our breathes formed fog in front of us, but it was helping me feel a little better. I was sitting on the edge of the bonnet, leaning against Sam's shoulder as we watch Dean pace back and forth in the darkness.

"Ah, my life was so simple." Sam reminisced. "Just school, exams, papers on polycentric cultural norms."

"So I guess we saved you from a boring existence." Dean told him.

"Yeah, occasionally I miss boring."

"So, this killer truck." Dean stopped pacing.

Sam snorted, "I miss conversations that didn't start with 'this killer truck'."

Dean and I laughed a little before Dean started again. "Well this Cyrus guy. Evil on a level that infected even his truck. When he died, the swamp became his tomb, and his spirit was dormant for 40 years."

"So what woke it up?" Sam asked.

"The construction on his house. Or the destruction." I told him, shivering slightly inside my jacket.

"Right." Sam agreed, wrapping an arm over my shoulders. "Demolition or remodelling can awaken spirits, make them restless. Like that theatre in Illinois, ya know?"

"And the guy that tore down the family homestead, Harold Todd, is the same guy that kept Cyrus' murder quiet and unsolved." Dean picked up.

"So now his spirit is awakened and out for blood." Honestly, it's like those two share a brain sometimes, they think so alike.

"Yeah I guess. Who knows what ghosts are thinking anyway." Dean sighed, coming to lean against the Impala on my other side.

There was a beat or two of silence before Sam broke it. "You know we're going to have to dredge that body up from the swamp right."

Dean just grinned at him, and I wondered about the logistics of that. The thing was buried in the swamp, had been for over forty years, how were we even going to find it, let along get it back out?

"Man." Sam sounded like he'd been having the same thoughts as me.

"You said it." Whether Dean was agreeing with our thoughts, or denying any responsibility for pointing out the task I wasn't sure.

Cassie approached from the house, her arms wrapped around her middle against the cold, and Dean stood to greet her. "She's asleep. Now what."

"Well you should stay put and look after her... and we'll be back." Dean told her. "Don't leave the house."

She smiled up at him. "Don't go getting all authoritative on me. I hate it."

Dean glanced back at us and I rolled my eyes, looking away. Clearly, Dean had forgiven her for calling him crazy, but I still wondered if he'd end up getting hurt again. He mumbled to her after a moment, "Don't leave the house, please?"

This was followed by wet smacking sounds and I looked around sharply. They were kissing. _Seriously, Dean?_ Beside me Sam coughed into his hand but Dean continued kissing the girl, holding a single finger back in a signal to wait. I cleared my throat a little louder than Sam had, and Sam cleared his throat a little louder again. We repeated this once more before Cassie broke away, laughing.

Dean turned to us in exasperation, "You want a throat sweet?"

* * *

The border of the swamp was clearly marked and we walked along it, a metal detector held at arms length until it got a weak signal the width of a truck. Sam and I stood at the bank wondering how you go fishing for trucks while dean went to hot-wire one of the bulldozers from the construction site. The only solution I could think of was to wade into the swamp and manually attach the tow line. Given it was below freezing, that didn't seem like a wise idea.

We were still standing there thinking about it when Dean got back with the JCB. He jumped down and started unreeling the tow line before he stopped and turned to us, "How are we gonna get this onto the truck?"

Sam shrugged at him and I sighed. Before bending to pull off my boots and socks, then my jeans, jacket, shirt and the bra from underneath the vest I was wearing. I piled my clothes neatly and took the tow line from my apparently speechless big brother.

"You can't be thinking- Ali, there's got to be a better way!" Sam grabbed at my wrist before I could walk into the swamp

"I'd love to hear it." I told him dryly. Shivering in the cold night air.

He hesitantly dropped my wrist and I pulled away, trying to ignore the dying hope that he had thought of something that didn't involve me freezing my arse off.

The mud was icy cold, slimy and stinking as I stepped in and it squelched around my toes. I shuddered in disgust and pushed forwards. The solid ground angled sharply down and the inky black, sucking mud rose quickly as far as my knees. I remembered studying non-Newtonian fluids in school and moved slowly, trying not to fight against the mud. The trickiest thing would be keeping my balance, and I held my arms out to my sides, knees slightly bent to allow me more movement. The cold felt like it was creeping into my skin, my flesh and my bones. Numbing me, then burning me and I clenched my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering.

It took an age to move forwards far enough to submerge up to my waist, and I was only a couple of meters from where my brothers stood at the shore. I was able to use my weight to my advantage now, leaning slightly in the direction I wanted to go, sinking further into the muck as I went. I stopped when it reached my chest, reaching forwards and searching by touch for the truck I knew must be hidden not far from where I stood. I couldn't feel anything and I lifted first one leg and then the other, bending at the knee so now I was kneeling on mud the consistency of jelly, rather than standing on the bottom. I leant forwards, stretching my arms out ahead and arching my back to keep my head above the water.

Pushing with a flat foot, then withdrawing a pointed foot seemed to propel me moderately well through the muck, and my arms were waving back and forth in the thinner liquid at the surface keeping now only my face above the water. I could feel the mud oozing into my hair, and my ears. Supposedly, people go to spas and pay to be coated in mud, people are crazy.

Finally my shin caught against something solid and I was able to use it to support myself, rising a little way out of the swamp.

"Have you found it?" Sam called from the shore, the first helpful thing he'd said since suggesting that we borrow the Robinson's metal detector. I'd been doing my best to ignore my brothers discussion about how they'd get me out if I sank and drowned ever since I'd lost contact with the solid bottom.

I felt around with my numb toes, running them along the metal until I found a corner, then back the other way to where I estimated the middle of the truck would be. I was at the rear of the truck, the tow line would need to be attached to the chassis. Roughly a meter below my feet and two meters below the surface.

I looked back to the shore and nodded. Dean went to start the JCB and I turned back to my task. I took a few deep breathes, in and out, then stood straight, allowing my weight to sink me into the water. Once I was up to my neck and could reach the top of the back of the truck with my hands I got a good grip on it, took one last big breath, and pulled myself down.

The freezing mud was even harder to move through at that depth and I hooked my feet under the truck, pulling myself down as quickly as I could. Frozen fingers reached the bottom of the truck and I numbly forced the tow line around something that felt solid. Once it was on, I gave it a sharp tug, it held.

My lungs were burning as I pulled and pushed and forced my way upwards. _I must not panic! The faster I try to move the harder it'll be to get out!_ But it was so cold, and my numbed fingers were slipping on the slimy mud and metal. _I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer, fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will allow my fear to pass over me and through me and when it has passed I will turn the inner eye to see it's path. Where fear has gone, there will be nothing, only I will remain._

The litany against fear took the edge off my panic, the cold was slowing my thoughts, and by the time I recited the litany once I had broken the surface. Gasping in the winter air, blessed relief as it filled my lungs.

"Sa..." I tried to call, "D-d-dea..." My voice was so weak. All I could do was continue to suck down great gasping breathes of glorious oxygen and hold myself on shaking arms. I pulled my legs through the swamp, dragging them into the bed of the truck and pushing myself further out of the muck.

"All right. Let's get her up." I'm dimly aware of Sam's voice from the shore and the movement of the truck underneath me.

"All right. A little more. Little more. All right, stop." Sam's voice was closer now. And once the truck stopped with a jolt beneath me Sam's hands, almost painfully warm were gripping my upper arms, pulling me out of the truck and wrapping an old blanket around me. "You did good, you crazy son of a bitch. You did good."

* * *

The mud sluiced off fairly easily, though I was still cold and wet. The blanket I was wrapped in had been turned so that I was wrapped in a clean part and I removed the muddy clothes I'd worn into the swamp, pulling my clean clothes back on without them. My brothers had fussed over me, once I had clothes on, and for a while I'd sat shuddering as they'd rubbed feeling back into my fingers and toes. All my extremities were pink again now and Dean was angrily telling me that cold injury was the most sissy way to loose a limb and that no sibling of his would be allowed to do so. Sam agreed, sarcasm clear in his voice as he told me to get a hand bitten off by a swamp monster next time.

I smiled sleepily at them. I was fine really, not even shivering. I just needed to take little nap and I'd be right as rain. My eyes drifted closed and suddenly Dean was slapping my cheek. "No! Don't you dare go to sleep on me!" I grumbled a little at him, and Sam started rubbing my legs as Dean pulled me into his lap and rubbed at my arms.

"Stay with us, Ali." Sam apparently finished with my legs because he tucked them up so I made a sort of cold, wet, stinking ball on Dean's lap and went to light a fire.

Dean turned me so that he could rub my back and warmth finally started to seep back in. I started to shiver violently, the cold and misery once again making itself known.

Sam soon had a small fire roaring and Dean carried me over to it. Once they were content that I wasn't dangerously cold any more, they left me huddled over my little fire and went to fetch rock salt and accelerant from the boot of the car.

"You know, now I know what she sees in you." Sam murmured quietly.

"Who? Ali?" Dean asked, rummaging among the weapons.

"No, Cassie."

"What?"

"Come on man, you can admit it. You're still in love with her."

"Ahh, can we focus please." I snorted slightly. Of course Dean didn't want to admit it. Last time he'd admitted it, he'd been hurt, and badly.

"I'm just saying Dean."

"Hold that." Dean shoved something into Sam's hands and Sam finally dropped the subject.

They got to work, building a small pyre and soaking it in accelerant, before approaching the truck with some hesitation. Dean opened the door and the forty year old decayed corpse of a racist murderer and arsonist fell out.

They wrapped it in a sheet and transferred it to the pyre, sprinkling rock-salt liberally over the top before I pulled a stick which was only alight at one end from my fire and handed it to Dean. He grinned at me briefly and I just knew he was picturing all the funeral pyre scenes in movies where they light it with a torch before he tossed it on and the flames spread rapidly, a small burst of warm air wafting over our faces.

"Think that'll do it?" Sam asked.

An engine revved loudly, breaking the peaceful quiet of the night and headlights shone brightly, making me squint against the sudden light.

"I guess not."

"So burning the body had no effect on that thing?" Sam's voice had risen slightly.

"Sure it did. Now it's really pissed." _Thanks, Dean, maybe now isn't the time for humour._

"But Cyrus' ghost is gone, right Dean?" Sam's voice was still rising.

Dean started to back away, "Apparently not the part that's fused with the truck."

"Where you going?"

"Goin' for a little ride." He was headed for the Impala.

"What!" Sam spluttered.

"Gonna lead that thing away." Dean explained, "That busted piece of crap, you gotta burn it."

"How the hell are we supposed to burn a truck, Dean?"

"I don't know. Figure something out." He threw a bag of supplies at Sam, then got into the Impala, slamming the door and leaving before I could follow.

"Figure some - something -" Sam spluttered, clutching the bag Dean had thrown to his chest as the ghost truck roared after the Impala.

I dropped my blanket as I pulled the bag from Sam, dropping it to the ground and digging through it for the salt. Sam dropped to his knees next to me, pulling the map from the bag and fumbling to open it to the section he needed. His phone rang and he answered it one handed, "Hey, you gotta give me a minute."

"I don't have a minute. What are we doing?" Dean's voice was tinny, but I could still hear the controlled panic.

"Ahh. Let me get back to you." Sam hung up.

He hung up.

Dean is racing for his life and Sam hung up on him.

My satchel was next to my little fire and I grabbed my phone from it and the spare salt I kept there.

I hit the speed dial and Dean answered straight away. "This better be good."

"Dean, I'm gonna try salting and burning the truck, but I really don't think it'll work. It's still covered in swamp! Even if it was dry it'd be difficult to set metal on fire, you need really high temperatures to get it started!" I fumbled, one handed with the pot of salt, dropping it in my haste.

"Where is he?" Sam called from behind me, "I've got a plan."

"Where are you?"

"In the middle of no where with a killer truck on my ass! It's like it knows I put the torch to Cyrus."

"Dean, that doesn't help. Where _are_ you?"

There was a brief pause before he answered. "Decatur road, about two miles off the highway."

I relayed the information to Sam, then just put him on loudspeaker.

"Okay. Headed East?" Sam was running his finger over the map, a finger on his other hand marking a fixed point on the map.

"Yes!" There was a muffled thump over the line and Dean swore.

"Was that-?" I left the phone with Sam and stormed back over to the truck. "That is _it_ , you rusty, ugly piece of scrap! You do _not_ hurt Baby!" I scooped up the dropped salt as I passed and threw the contents in through the open driver's door.

"Yeah I made the turn! You need to move this thing along a little faster." Dean's angry voice coming from the phone behind me suggested that my rant had had no effect on the truck and I kicked the wheel in frustration. We were helpless.

"All right, you see a road up ahead?" I turned my attention back to Sam and Dean, all I could do was listen and hope that whatever Sam had planned would work.

"No! Wait. No, yes, I see it."

"Okay, Turn left."

"Wha...?" The familiar sound of Baby's brakes screeched over the phone. "All right, now what?"

"You need to go seven tenths of a mile and then stop."

"Stop?"

"Exactly seven tenths Dean."

I hurried back to Sam, peering over his shoulder at the map, where his two fingers were almost touching. The place they marked, there was nothing there!

The brakes screeched again, and then nothing but silence from the phone. "Dean, You still there?"

"Yeah." I breathed a sigh of relief at hearing his voice, for a moment there...

"What's happening?" Sam asked.

"It's just staring at me, what do I do?"

"Just what you are doing, bringing it to you." Sam had this little grin on his face, like he was just about to beat me at chess again.

"Wha..." "Sam?"

The sound of revving engines came from the phone, and Dean murmuring, "Come on, come on." The revving got louder, then silence fell.

I gripped Sam's arm. "Dean. You still there? Dean?"

"Where'd it go?" He sounded slightly out of breath.

"Dean, you're where the church was." Sam's arm relaxed under my grip, which was slackening now too, and that damn grin was back on his face.

"What church?!"

"The place Cyrus burned down. Murdered all those kids." Sam explained.

"There's not a whole lot left." Dean commented.

"Church ground is hallowed ground, whether the church is still there or not. Evil spirits cross over hallowed ground, sometimes they're destroyed, so I figured, maybe, that would get rid of it." My little brother is a genius. I let my head fall forwards against his shoulder, the relief coursing through me as my adrenaline levels started to drop.

"Maybe? Maybe!" Dean shouted over the phone. "What if you were wrong?"

"Huh. Honestly that thought hadn't occurred to me." I raised my head, staring at the little shit.

There was a moment of silence before the dial tone came from the phone as Dean hung up, and then I punched Sam in the shoulder.

"Didn't occur to you?!" I screeched at him, and he drew back with wide eyes. "He trusts you, Sam! You told him to stand still and let the ghost catch him and he did it without question. He trusts you!" Tears were gathering in my eyes; I always cry when I'm coming down from an adrenalin high, I hate it. "He trusts you with his life and what if you'd been wrong? 'The thought hadn't occurred to you' isn't good enough, Sam!"

He was still drawn back, with those puppy dog eyes wide and innocent as I burst into tears and went to reclaim my blanket and huddle over my fire until Dean came back.

* * *

The next day we were packed and ready to leave. Dean had forgiven Sam, and I'd had a shower, which had vastly improved everything, as far as I was concerned. We'd given Cassie the good news that it was over and then fallen into bed and slept until morning.

Sam was sitting in the driver's seat and I was in the back. We were parked at the docks, looking out over the water and waiting for Dean, who'd arranged to meet Cassie here to say goodbye.

They walked up to the car and stopped beside the passenger door. "This is a better goodbye than last time." Cassie observed, her words drifting through the open window.

"Yeah well maybe this time it will be a little less permanent."

"You know what? I'm a realist. I don't see much hope for us Dean."

"Well I've seen stranger things happen. A hell of a lot stranger."

I leaned forward over Sam's shoulder murmuring into his ear, "I've seen some pretty strange shit too, but Dean in a steady relationship would top it all."

Sam snorted and nodded his agreement. We looked up to find our brother playing tonsil hockey with the girl.

I cleared my throat.

Sam cleared his a little louder.

I reached over his shoulder and pressed the horn.

The couple sprang apart, Dean turning to glare at us as Sam flapped at me, trying to get me to stop the obnoxious noise.

My goal achieved I released the wheel and settled back into my seat, a slightly smug smile on my lips. Dean got into the car and Sam sent a sheepish wave to Cassie as we pulled away, Dean twisted in his seat to continue glaring at me.

"What?" _I'm the picture of innocence._

* * *

It had taken a long time for Dean to quit his glaring, but eventually he'd realised that it wasn't bothering me in the slightest and had given up. He was watching the countryside go by the window as Sam drove and I was dropping off to sleep when Sam spoke.

"I like her." Dean grunted an acknowledgement, "You meet someone like her, doesn't it makes you wonder if it's worth it? Putting everything else on hold, doing what we do?"

I opened my eyes enough to peer at my younger brother, he wasn't feeling the pain usually associated with the loss of Jess; was he healing? Or was he focused on something else?

There was a beat of silence while Dean and I both observed Sammy, and then Dean spoke. "Why don't you wake me up when it's my turn to drive?"

He settled his sunglasses over his eyes and slouched down into his seat to get some rest, and I let my eyes drift shut again. I wonder if Sam really is recovering? Wouldn't that be good.


	15. Nightmare

It was dark in the motel room, Sam's breathing coming deep and even from the other bed and Dean's chest moving steadily beneath my head. All was calm and peaceful after our last hunt, but I couldn't sleep. The vampire had managed to knock me against the wall, banging up my mostly healed shoulder. It hadn't reopened, but it was throbbing something fierce, even all these hours later.

Behind me Sam's breathing pattern changed, becoming shorter and slightly panicked. I turned my head to glance at him over my aching shoulder, he was shuffling in his sleep the way he always did when he had a bad dream, his face pinched in distress.

Sam's eyes popped open and he sat up, staring straight ahead.

"Sammy?" He glanced over at the sound of my voice before reaching over to turn on the lamp on the table between the beds and shaking Dean's arm.

"Dean. Dean."

Dean grunted slightly and I sat up, watching in confusion as Sam got up and started packing his things.

Dean rubbed a hand over his eyes behind me, his voice thick with sleep, "What are you doing man, it's the middle of the night."

I twisted around to get out of bed, still watching Sam as he shoved a few items back into his bag and then made a start on mine.

"We have to go."

Dean sat up behind me, and his voice had lost the sleepy tone, "What's happening?"

"We have to go. Right now."

Dean and I glanced at each other as Sam grabbed his bag and left. Then I grabbed my jeans, pulling them back on and standing from the bed. "How long before he realises he left without his shoes?"

Ten minutes later we were on the road, I was doubled over in the back seat, fumbling in the dark to tie my bootlaces, and Sam was on the phone. "McCreedy. Detective McCreedy. Badge number 158. I've got a signal 4-80 in progress, I need the registered owner of a two door sedan, Michigan license plate Mary-Frank-six-zero-three-seven. Yeah okay, just hurry."

"Sammy relax. I'm sure it's just a nightmare." There was a distinct element of doubt in Dean's voice, barely covered by the familiar bravado.

"Yeah, tell me about it." Sam muttered.

"I mean it. Y'know, a normal, everyday, naked-in-class, nightmare." Dean told him, "This license plate, it won't check out. You'll see."

"It felt different, Dean. Real. Like when I dreamt about our old house. And Jessica."

I straightened up in the back, my laces finally tied. "Yeah, that makes sense. You're dreaming about your house, your girlfriend. This guy in your dream, you ever seen him before?"

"No." Something in Sam's voice was reluctant, trying not to hope, but seeming to do so all the same.

"No. Exactly." Dean agreed somewhat triumphantly, "Why would you have premonitions about some random dude in Michigan?"

"I don't know."

"Me neither." Dean announced, as if that settled it.

"Hello?" A small, tinny voice came from the phone and Sam lifted it back to his ear.

"Yes, I'm here." He listened for a moment, the words unclear to me as he held the phone pressed to his ear. He shot a bitchface at Dean and picked up his pen, starting to take notes. "Jim Miller. Saginaw, Michigan. You have a street address? Got it. Thanks."

He sighed and snapped the phone shut. "Checks out. How far are we?"

"From Saginaw? Coupla hours."

Sam stared out at the rainy night, the wipers sweeping across the windscreen, "Drive faster."

The only answer was the roar of Baby's engine as Dean pressed his foot down harder.

* * *

Blue and red lights were flashing as we pulled up to Jim Miller's house. Several cop cars and an ambulance surrounded the property, not to mention the crowd of curious neighbours. The Impala rolled to a stop and we watched as a coroner zipped a body bag over the face of the man laying on a stretcher.

My brothers and I exchanged a look, Dean and I were worried, Sam was visibly upset. I rested a hand on his shoulder and we watched as Dean got out of the car. Sam soon followed, shrugging off my hand, and they headed towards the gathered onlookers.

I sat for another moment, watching as Dean approached a woman, both of them watching the activity around the house as he spoke to her. Then I let myself flop back against the seat, wincing slightly as my shoulder came in contact with the leather behind me.

Sam had seen this man die, and now he was dead. What did that mean? Sam had had visions before, but I hadn't really looked too closely at it, focusing more on how Sam was coping, rather than why he was having the visions in the first place.

I let my gaze drop, staring into the middle distance as I dragged up all the information I knew about psychic abilities. Most of the time there need to be some sort of link, fortune tellers would often take a client's hand. Clairvoyants would visit a location to read its energy, as Missouri had done with the house in Lawrence. Dreams and premonitions about one's own life were fairly commonplace, nearly everyone can relate to the feeling of deja vu after all; the feeling that you knew that was going to happen before it did. But to see something so clearly that you could remember details like a number plate, about something completely removed from your own life? That's pretty rare. Skilled psychics could scry; with the right tools and conscious direction of energy and focus they could look for specific places, people or events, but something like this?

There must be some sort of link here. Something tying Sam to this place, this man whose Deathcry was reverberating against me. But what could the link be? As far as I knew, Sam had never been to Saginaw before.

My thoughts were interrupted as the Impala moved slightly with Sam's weight against it, and I opened the door, getting out as Dean joined him. "Sam, we got here as fast we could."

"Not fast enough. It doesn't make any sense, Man. Why would I even have these premonitions if there wasn't a chance I could stop them from happening?"

"I dunno." Dean sighed as I wrapped an arm around my younger brother, leaning into him and rubbing my other hand up and down his forearm.

Sam sighed after a moment and shrugged out of my grip, "So, what do you think killed him?"

"Maybe the guy just killed himself?" Dean offered, "Maybe there's nothing supernatural going on at all."

"It wasn't a suicide; his Deathcry is too panicked for that."

There was a silence following my words until Sam shook his head. "I'm telling you, I watched it happen. He was murdered by something, Dean. I watched it trap him in the garage."

"What was it? a spirit? poltergeist? what?"

"I don't know what it was." Sam answered in frustration, "I don't know why I'm having these dreams, I don't know what the hell is happening, Dean."

There was another moment of silence, I watched the family gathered on the porch of the house. The mother was sobbing against a man's chest, he had tears running down his cheeks too, and her son was stood behind them, a blank look on the boy's face. I could smell the man's and the mother's pain from here, but the boy was blank to me, still in shock no doubt.

"What?" At Sam's voice I turned my head sideways and upwards to watch my two brothers. Sam was glaring, but Dean had a look on his face that I hadn't seen there since the night Sam had left for college. It was a look that said that Dean was worried; everything was spiraling out of control and he doesn't know how to stop it, mixed with a load of guilt over how in Dean's mind, he's the big brother who should have all the answers, who should make everything okay again. But right now, he doesn't know how and it's making him feel like he's failed.

He shrugged and tried to wipe the look from his face, though the guilt still lingered in his eyes. "Nothing. I'm just, I'm worried about you, man."

"Well, don't look at me like that!"

Dean turned his head away, "I'm not looking at you like anything. Though I gotta say, you do look like crap." He and I both looked up at Sammy as he said that. He had a point, Sam looked stressed, tension in his stance and sadness and guilt written across his face.

He snorted and turned to look straight ahead. "Nice. Thanks."

Dean's lips quirked upwards, the tension broken, and he opened the car door, "Come on, lets just pick this up in the morning. We'll check out the house, talk to the family."

"Dean, you saw them, they're devastated." Sam protested, "They're not going to want to talk to us."

"Yeah you're right." He shrugged slightly, "But I think I know who they will talk to."

"Who?" I asked as I followed Sam to the other side of the car.

Dean just smirked at us in response.

* * *

"This has gotta be a whole new low for us." Sam stated as Dean reached out to press the doorbell to the Miller's house.

Dean gave him a smirk which clearly said, 'I know, isn't it great?' and turned back to face the door as it opened to reveal the man who'd been present the night before.

"Good afternoon. I'm Father Simmons, this is Father Frehley. We're new junior priests over at St Augustine's. May we come in?" Dean slipped smoothly into character and I directed my attention back to the old tape player in my hand. There wasn't any music playing, but it was a tactic I used often to blend into the background and 'disappear' while in full view in a public place. No one pays any mind to a teenage girl with headphones in and a faraway expression. It leaves me free to observe, so long as I'm careful not to show any reactions on my face to what I overhear.

"It's in difficult times like these when the Lord's guidance is most needed." Dean's voice stated as my brothers disappeared into the house. The irony of my older brother of all people saying those words sorely challenged my resolve not to show any reactions, as I trudged passed the house, discretely checking to see if any nosy neighbours were around. Also how much of the Deathcry still lingered, how close would I be able to get without feeling like I was going to throw up? Fortunately it had pretty much cleared.

"Look, you wanna pitch your whole 'Lord has a plan' thing? Fine. Just don't pitch it to me. My brother's dead." The man's words wiped the smile off my face. Not that I'd been smiling, because I'd not been showing any visible reaction, of course.

I chose my moment, and my destination, and quickly darted from the sidewalk into the bushes, disappearing and settling close enough to the house that I'd be able to listen in.

A woman's voice was speaking, "I'm sorry about my brother in law. He's...he's just so upset about Jim's death. Would you like some coffee?"

I pulled a few twigs out from underneath myself, wincing as I did so while my brothers accepted the offer of coffee and moved further into the house, I had to strain to hear them now.

"Of course. After all we are all God's children." Dean's voice was easier to pick out from the other voices around him, attuned as my ears are to my brothers' voices.

Sam muttered something too low for me to catch and I started crawling through the small gap between the bushes and the house they were growing against, trying to get to a point where I could hear better what was going on inside.

"So, Ms Miller, did you husband have a history of depression?" Dean voice was still distant, and I didn't hear the response. There was murmuring in Sam's soft voice and then footsteps in my direction. I froze, halfway behind a stem of a prickly bush I'd been negotiating with the appropriate level of care and quiet.

"Max? Hey, I'm Sam." Sam's voice was close to me now, still quiet, but close, quite possibly just the other side of the wall from where I was leaning awkwardly around the thorny stem, but no longer daring to move. "So, what was your Dad like?"

"Just a normal dad." This voice was unfamiliar, but close enough that I could hear every word.

"Yeah. You live at home now?"

"Yeah. Trying to save up for school but it's hard."

"So when you found your dad..." Sam prompted.

"I woke up, I heard the engine running." There was a pause and I tried to get a read on the pain through the wall. "I don't know why he did it."

"I know it's rough, losing a parent. Especially when you don't have all the answers."

It was so strange; I could sense Sam's pain, even with the wall between us, maybe he was thinking about Dad. But I couldn't sense any pain from this Max he was speaking to.

I began the laborious process of extracting myself from the bushes and pondered what I'd heard. Max was clearly the son of Jim Miller, and the one who'd found his father, apparently having committed suicide. That's got to mess a kid up, surely it's playing on his mind, if either of my dad's had ever done that, I wouldn't have been able to think about anything else. My brain would have been stuck on the word 'Why?'. So, _why_ wasn't Max troubled by this?

I could sense a small amount of fear, like a stale odour permeating the air around him, but even that didn't make sense. Fear smells sharp and sour, it only smells stale when the person has been living in fear for a long time, when they're used to being afraid.

People who suffer from anxiety often smell like that, but it's generally a faint background odour, covered by whatever emotions they're feeling over the top of their anxiety. To a prangeni it's like people with anxiety have BO, covered up with deodorant, but what I could sense off Max? That was pure BO, strong and putrid.

Did he know something about his father's death, had he seen more than he was saying? But then why is the scent so old? This isn't the result of a couple of days of fear, this must be years!

Still thinking deeply about what I'd sensed, and what I hadn't, I emerged from the bushes and absently pulled leaves out of my hair as I joined my brothers by the car.

A couple of hours later, back at the motel room, I was still deep in thought when Dean kicked my foot to get my attention. "You've been cleaning that firing pin for ten minutes now. What's up?"

I glanced down at the firing pin in my hand, it was indeed the cleanest firing pin I'd ever seen and I sighed, dropping the pin and the rag I'd been using to my lap. "That Max kid Sam spoke to. There's something wrong with him."

"Well yeah, kid found his dad checked out in the garage; that'd mess anyone up"

"No, it was more than that." No grief, no pain, just that fear. The stale, cloying scent of it strong enough to be detected from outside the house.

"I really think that firing pin is clean, Ali." I glanced down again, sure enough I'd been mindlessly polishing the firing pin again. I placed it back on the cleaning kit and picked up the barrel, wiping the carbon off and grabbing a patch and a pull-through.

"Something's up with that Max kid, Dean, I'm telling you."

"Yeah, his dad took a forever nap."

I dropped it, since I hadn't yet figured out exactly what was going on with that kid and a rustle of paper behind me drew our attention to Sam; blue-tacking another A4 sheet to the motel room wall.

"What do you have?" Dean asked.

"A whole lotta nothing. Nothing bad has happened in the Miller house since it was built."

"What about the land?"

"No grave yards, battle fields, tribal lands or any other kind of atrocity on or near the property." Sam sank onto the bed behind me and I leant my head back against his shoulder, abandoning the pull through halfway through the barrel I'd been cleaning.

"Hey man I told you, I searched that house up and down. No cold spots, sulfur scent. Nada."

"And the family said everything was normal?" Sam asked, shrugging to remove me from his shoulder.

"Well, if there was a demon or poltergeist in there you think somebody would have noticed something? I used the infer-red thermal scanner man, and there was nothing."

Sam was quiet for a moment and I gave the pull through a sharp yank, the patch came out of the muzzle at speed and I caught it in the air.

"So what, you think Jim Miller killed himself and my dream was just some sorta freakish coincidence?"

"I dunno. I'm pretty sure there's nothing supernatural about that house." Dean dropped the reassembled shotgun and put his colt M1911 back together, removing the mag and picked up a revolver, running the dirty rag he'd used on all the guns through the chamber. I winced watching him, it won't get any cleaner; running a dirty rag through it will probably end up depositing carbon in the revolver, it's not like that revolver had been used since I'd last cleaned it anyway.

"Yeah. Well, maybe it has nothing to do with the house." Sam was rubbing his head, and took a deep breath as his tension head ache started to grow rapidly in strength. "Maybe it's just...Gosh." I dropped the rifle barrel and the pull through to the mattress beside me and reached for my brother "... maybe it's connected to Jim in some other way?"

"What's wrong with you?"

Sam's pain was getting pretty intense and I couldn't draw it all away as he sank from the bed, "Ahh. My head."

"Sam? Hey," Dean came and crouched in front of Sam, gripping his arm, "Hey! What's going on? Talk to me."

Sam's wide eye's looked up at Dean, then they slipped out of focus.

"Sammy? Ali, what's going on?"

"I don't know. I'm just trying to control the pain!" Was he having some sort of seizure? What was wrong with him?!

Suddenly the pain skyrocketed and then fell to a background hum and Sam's eyes focused back on Dean. "It's happening again." He announced, "Something's gonna kill Roger Miller!"

I'd removed my hand from Sam's arm as if I'd been burned and I continued to stare at him as he and Dean hurried out to the car. The door closing behind them jolted me into movement and I raced to catch up, still reeling from what I'd sensed from Sam.

That had been a Deathcry.

Only faint, no more than an echo, but the nausea was unmistakable.

Sam was still holding his head, still in pain as he spoke into his phone and then repeated Roger Miller's address to Dean. I felt bad leaving him in pain, especially as Dean questioned him on it and offered to pull the car over, pretending he was concerned about the upholstery if Sam were to chuck his cookies. But the Deathcry had seriously unsettled me. It wasn't so much the Deathcry itself, it was only a faint echo of the real thing after all, but the fact that I had sensed it from my baby brother.

"Dean, I'm scared man. These nightmares weren't bad enough, now I'm seeing things when I'm awake? And these, visions, or whatever, they're getting more intense. And painful."

"Come on man, you'll be all right. It'll be fine."

"What is it about the Millers? Why am I connected to them, why am I watching them die? Why the hell is this happening to me?"

"I don't know, Sam, but we'll figure it out. We've faced the unexplainable every day. This is just another thing."

"No. It's never been us. It's never been in the family like this. Tell the truth, you can't tell me this doesn't freak you out."

Dean stared straight ahead for just a beat too long, then said, "This doesn't freak me out."

"And excuse you!" I added from the back seat, "Weird things not being in the family; what am I?"

Sam twisted in his seat, wide eyes staring at me. "Oh, Ali, I didn't mean you!" I raised an eyebrow at him. "You don't count as weird! I mean not for us, you're 'us' normal, and you're definitely family, I didn't mean, I never meant to imply-"I let my lips twitch upwards, letting him off the hook. "You suck."

I probably could have drawn that out more, but he's just so damn cute when he's flustered.

We spotted Roger Miller as we pulled up to his apartment; he was walking towards the front door with a bag of groceries. Sam shouted out the window to get his attention, but he clearly didn't want to know.

"What are you guys, missionaries? Leave me alone."

He walked off and Dean hurriedly parked the car, Sam was out of the car and racing after Roger almost before the car had stopped. Dean and I were not far behind, but the door was closed behind Roger by the time we got to it and he was disappearing inside the building, Sam shouting after him, "We're not priests, you gotta listen to us!"

"Roger, you're in danger!" Dean shouted, but the man was already gone. We'd have to find another way in.

I followed my brothers around the corner to a back entrance, a quick glance to ensure no one was watching and Dean kicked the gate open. A little way down the alley we'd gained illicit access to, Sam jumped and caught a fire escape, climbing up and starting to ascend the stairs. Dean used the wall opposite to get enough height to follow and I jumped from standing, caught a hand grip to pull myself up and fiery pain exploded in my shoulder, I yelped and dropped the ground, Dean glanced over his shoulder at me, but I shouted that I was fine and he followed Sam up the stairs.

I watched from below as the view of my brothers became increasingly obscured by the metal framework of the fire escape as they climbed. My shoulder was throbbing angrily and I gripped it tightly, trying to ignore it and focus on my brothers up above. Sirens passed on the street and somewhere a cat yowled, then a window slammed shut and there was a dull thud. My brothers both stilled, seeming to stare upwards before Dean continued up the stairs to the window they needed.

The Deathcry reached me a moment later, only faint, at this distance and for so sudden a death, but still recognisable as the same one that I had sensed before through Sam. The nausea returned and I dropped my gaze, wandering out to the front of the building again. We were too late to save Roger Miller and Sam and Dean would deal with the investigation.

My shoulder was throbbing and my stomach was rolling angrily and I stumbled slightly as I turned the corner onto the street and was hit with a stench of stale fear. The same fear I'd scented at the Miller's house the day before. I gagged slightly and looked around, trying to locate the source of the offensive smell. Unable to do so, I decided to take shelter in the car and wait for Sam and Dean to return. The scent was strong enough that there was no urgency in following it, it would still be there when my brother's returned.

By the time Sam and Dean emerged from the side alley I was feeling somewhat better. I'd retreated to the car and lain down on my good side atop the cool leather of the back seat. Pressing my forehead against it and occasionally moving to a fresh patch once the leather became too warm. I recogised Dean's voice approaching and I sat up, wincing slightly as my arm moved. "I'm telling you there was nothing in there. No signs either, just like the Miller's house."

"I saw something, in the vision." Sam insisted, "Like a dark shape. Something was...something was stalking Roger."

Dean reached a casual hand in front of Sam's chest, stopping his advance while a car passed, "Whatever it was, we're sure it's not connected to their house."

"No, it's connected to the family themselves. So what do you think, like a vengeful spirit?"

"Well yeah, there's a few that have been known to latch onto families, follow them for years."

"Angiak. Banshees." Sam listed as he got into the car.

"Basically like a curse. So maybe Roger and Jim Miller got involved in something heavy, something curse worthy."

"And now the something is out for revenge. And the men in their family are dying." Sam paused for a moment and I gave some thought to what he'd said about Angiak. The vengeful spirit of an abandoned child that reanimates the body. When they grow strong enough they can shape shift into various animals which it can then use to kill off the members of the family that abandoned it. It's possible, they do go after families after all, but they're spirits and we'd have seen signs, EMF and so on.

"Hey, you think Max is in Danger?" Sam asked and then I remembered!

"Oh, Yeah!" Sam and Dean both twisted to face me, "You know how I said there was something wrong with that kid? Well, he was here, today."

Dean frowned at me, "How'd you figure?"

"I can scent his fear." I wrinkled my nose, "It's… pungent."

"His fear?" Sam questioned, "How'd you know it's not someone else's fear?"

"Because, like I said, that kid's messed up." They simultaneously gave me bitchfaces. "How do you expect me to explain a sense you don't have? It's like describing colours to a blind man!"

"So," Sam started, "if Max was there the night his father died, and here the night his uncle died, maybe whatever's killing them is following Max."

They both turned back to face the front and Dean started the car, revving the engine before pulling away with a squeal from the tires.

* * *

Sam and Dean had donned the priest outfits again and gone to visit the remaining Millers. I chosen to remain in the car this time, phoning Bobby. We'd had a brief chat, there was still no news of Dad, not since he'd called us about the scarecrow in Indiana. Bobby's junkyard business was suffering a little, he'd not had the time for it with the number of hunters calling asking him to research what they were hunting.

He'd had a few questions about subtypes of banshee. We'd discussed the details and original regional differences in the Lore, eventually coming to the conclusion that there were several different types of banshee originally, though over time these seem to have mingled, so now they weren't reliably found in their ancestral lands and there seemed to be cross-breeding between the types. We're not sure how they're cross-breeding, as banshee are all females, but that was the only explanation we could come up with for the new varieties that were being reported.

None of them however seemed to fit the MO for the Millers. They all foretell death, alerting the family with their keening, they don't kill silently and leave no trace. They certainly have been known to latch on to families, the lore in Ireland in particular is strong on this point, but nowhere in the lore is a banshee a silent killer.

The name, a bastardisation of the Irish beansidhe, (pronounced more or less the same) means woman of the fairy mound. They are also known as beanchaointe, which means keening woman, though that term can also be applied with no supernatural connotations to the women wailing at a funeral. Either way, wailing is kind of their thing.

Eventually Bobby had had to go, as one of his phones kept ringing. I sat in the car, fiddling with the sling Dean had insisted I wear. ("Well you keep making it worse, so now you have to wear a sling: if you didn't want to, you oughta've let it heal right the first time!") I pondered again what Sam had said about the Angiak. They're a type of Reventant; a ghost which possesses it's own corpse, or occasionally another recently deceased corpse.

If we add in Max's fear, and the fact that he was present at both murders, it's possible that a vengeful spirit might be possessing him. It would explain why he's so afraid. But possession takes a lot of energy, it's why revenants are more common than possession of a living person, the spirit would need to be continually powered by its desire for vengeance. Revenants typically don't last very long, the energy required for possession burns through them, even fueled as they are by the need for vengeance.

A long term ghost possession would be almost impossible, and Max has been afraid for a very long time. Even if a ghost could possess a person for so long, why would it wait all this time before killing? If it wanted vengeance on Jim and Roger, and it had possessed Max, surely it would have hurried up and just killed them? Why had Max been afraid for so long?

Sam and Dean left the Miller's house and strolled down the driveway, Dean removing the stiff white collar as soon as he was able. "No one's family is totally normal and happy. See when he was talking about his old house?"

"He sounded scared." Sammy observed and I scoffed; that kid's always scared, he reeks of it.

"Yeah Max isn't telling us everything. I say we go find the old neighbourhood, find out what life was really like for the Millers."

* * *

We pulled up to the address we'd found, parking across the street. The houses were fairly large, wooden built and looked quite charming, surrounded by trees and other greenery. It looked perfectly normal and happy, as Max had described. I opened the door, climbing out and crossing the street, trying to see if any 'odours' had lingered. Though given how long it had been, in such a busy neighbourhood, it was unlikely at best.

Sam and Dean got out of the car behind me and struck up a conversation with a man raking leaves in his front garden, right next to were we'd parked. I couldn't go in to the properties, only stand at the curb, with this many witnesses. But even from there I got a slight whiff of the stale scent of fear, though it doubtless wouldn't have been noticeable had I not been looking for it.

I gave up and rejoined my brothers just as Sam was steering the conversation to what we wanted to know. "Have you lived in the neighbourhood very long?"

"Yeah, almost 20 years now. It's nice and quiet. Why, you looking to buy?"

"No, no, actually, we were wondering if you might recall a family that used to live right across the street, I believe." Sam gestured over his shoulder at the house.

"Yeah, the Millers. They had a little boy called Max." Dean chimed in.

"Yeah I remember." The guy's tone had shifted, more… melancholy? "The brother had the place next door. So uh, what's this about, is that poor kid okay?"

"What do you mean?" Sam questioned.

"Well, on my life, I've never seen a child treated like that. I mean I'd hear Mr Miller yelling and throwing things clear across the street, he was a mean drunk. He used to beat the tar outta Max. Bruises. Broke his arm two times that I know of."

I stepped away from the conversation, heading back to the car. I felt as if I needed to get some air, a queasy feeling was setting in my stomach as the memory of the pain of a broken arm came back to me.

Pain experienced first hand is different to second hand pain, other people's pain is nutritional and delicious, being in pain myself? Completely different story. My father had only broken my arm once. It had been a dull sort of pain, as if it was muffled by something. It still hurt, by goodness had it hurt, but there were no sharp edges to it, coming from inside as it had, and the exact point of pain was difficult to identify. It had still made me gasp every time I felt the bones moving inside though, and I'd kept it as still as I could, ignoring the steady pain from the bone as it had healed over the weeks.

I remember most the fear that the bones might heal wrong; no one had set my arm for me. My father had broken it, and had fed off my pain while I gasped and whimpered, trying to stop the tears from falling. And then my father had left, shutting the cupboard door behind him and I had held my arm carefully against my chest, gasping for breath and crying silently in the darkness as I trembled from the shock.

Sam's pain started to trickle through my awareness, pulling my attention back to the present moment. The guy was speaking, saying something about how Max's mother had died in a car accident, but Sam had his eyes closed and he was holding a hand to his forehead, his face starting to screw up as the pain I could sense from him reached a sharp point.

Dean started supporting Sam back to the car and I reached for my younger brother, starting to pull away as much of the pain as I could as Sam's eyes glazed over and Dean and I got him into the car and got moving.

I kept my hand on Sam, helping as much as I could until the shock of the second-hand deathcry ran through my brother and into my hand on his shoulder and I drew it away with a sharp hiss.

"The Miller's house." Sam gasped, giving Dean a destination. And then we rode in silence while Sam tried to get his breath back and I rubbed at the hand that had been touching Sam's shoulder. "Max is doing it. Everything I've been seeing."

"You sure about this?"

"Yeah, I saw him."

"How's he pulling it off?"

"I don't know, like telekinesis?"

"What, so he's psychic, a spoon bender?"

Sam ignored Dean's question, continuing as if he'd not been interrupted. "I didn't even realize it but this whole time, he was there. He was outside the garage when his Dad died, he was in the apartment when his Uncle died. These visions, this whole time - I wasn't connecting to the Millers, I was connecting to Max! The thing is I don't get why, man. I guess - because we're so alike?"

"What are you talking about?" Demanded Dean, "The dude's nothing like you."

"Well. We both have psychic abilities, we both..."

"Both what? Sam, Max is a monster, he's already killed two people, now he's gunning for a third."

"Well, with what he went through, the beatings, to want revenge on those people? I'm sorry, man, I hate to say it, but it's not that insane." Sam insisted.

"Yes, it is." My voice was quiet, but it cut through my brothers' raised voices and heralded a silence that hung heavy and uncomfortable over the car. It _was_ insane though; wanting to hurt, to kill anyone is insane, no matter what they've done to you. Wanting bad things to happen to bad people, that's not crazy, but taking it into your own hands, becoming a bad person yourself? That is insane.

Dean pulled the car over and cut the engine. We sat in silence for a few moments before he spoke, "He's no different from anything else we've hunted, all right? We gotta end him."

"We're not going to kill Max."

"Then what? Hand him over to the cops and say 'Lock him up officer; he kills with the power of his mind.'"

"Dean, just because he's insane, doesn't mean he's irredeemable."

"He's a person. We can talk to him." Sam built on my argument, "Hey, promise me you'll follow our lead on this one."

Dean eyed both us and the Miller's house with a frown on his face, clearly unhappy with the proposed plan. "All right fine. But I'm not letting him hurt anybody else." He leant across and removed Sam's Taurus pistol from the glove box.

We all got out of the car, and after a brief argument about whether or not I would be coming with (I said yes, Dean said no, Sam said we didn't have time for this) we hurried over to the Miller's house. Dean hit the door, shoulder first and it burst open, Sam and I were close behind.

Max and his step-mother were in the kitchen, both looking up, shocked at out sudden entrance. "Fathers?"

"What are you doing here?" Max questioned, clearly uneasy, and eying me warily.

"Max, can we, uh, can we talk to you outside for just one second?"

"About what?" Max was still watching me carefully, and I observed him in return. He was pale, and thin. The combination leaving him looking unhealthy. He had curly hair, beginning to retreat across his forehead despite his obvious youth.

"It's...it's private. I wouldn't want to bother your mother with it." Sam stumbled through an explanation, "We won't be long at all though, I promise."

"Shared experiences." I added, keeping my eyes on Max and curling in on myself slightly, hugging the arm that was in a sling close to me and trying to make myself appear small. Not exactly a challenge when standing next to Sammy.

Max glanced back at his step-mother before answering us, "Okay."

We turned to lead Max towards the door, and I flinched away from Sam's hand as it came up to rest on my shoulder. It was disturbing how easy it was to slip back into the timid behaviors I'd had when I'd first been rescued by the Winchesters, how easily the years seemed to slip away and allow the fear to take root once more. It was like a weed, continuing to return despite how many years I'd spent trying to eradicate it.

I don't know what happened, I was staring at the ground, despairing at my own emotions, but suddenly the door ahead of us slammed shut, the shutters of all the windows followed, leaving the hall in darkness and Max was backing away, "You're not priests!"

Dean drew the gun from his waistband but it seemed to slip from his grasp, flying across the room to land at Max's feet.

"Max, what's happening?" His step-mother asked as he retrieved the gun from the floor, pointing it at us awkwardly, as if he'd never held one before and was slightly surprised by the heavy weight of it in his hand.

"Shut up." He told her, without turning to look.

"What are you doing?" She pressed, starting forward from the kitchen.

Max flung his hand out in her direction and she twisted backwards, leaving the ground slightly before her head connected with the kitchen counter and she fell, unmoving to the ground. "I said shut up!"

"Max, calm down." Sam stepped forward, placing himself slightly ahead of me and Dean with his hands raised in a placating gesture.

"Who are you?" Max demanded, holding a hand to his head as a pale echo of the pain Sam had felt during his visions slowly faded from his head.

"We just wanna talk." Sam's voice was aiming for calm, but not quite achieving it.

"Yeah right, that's why you bought this!" He turned the gun briefly sideways to show its profile before pointing it at us once more.

"That was a mistake, all right? So was lying about who we were. But no more lying Max ok? Just please, just hear me out." Sam's voice was slightly raised, and he stepped more fully in front of me and the gun wavered in Max's trembling hand.

"About what?"

Sam swallowed, "I saw you do it. I saw you kill your Dad and your Uncle before it happened."

"What?" Max aimed the gun more fully at Sam; until that point it hadn't really selected a target, merely pointed in our general direction. Dean shifted uneasily.

"I'm having visions Max. About you."

"You're crazy."

"So what, you weren't gonna launch a knife at your step-mom?" he tapped a finger just below his right eye, "Right here? Is it that hard to believe Max, look what you can do. Max I was drawn here all right? I think I'm here to help you."

Max's face screwed up as pain and anger flooded from him, "No one can help me."

"Why?" My voice wasn't exactly stable, but I stepped out from behind Sam anyway, and Max blinked at me, as if he'd forgotten I was there. "You think you're special? You think you're the only child whose father beat them? The only child who trembled when they heard the front door slam, heard the heavy, drunken footsteps in the hall. Who tried every time to hide, because you knew, you _knew_ , what was coming. The only child who cried alone in the dark, because it didn't matter if you screamed or not, no one ever came, no one saved you, no one cared."

Tears were pouring down my cheeks and I was seeing _his_ face again, angry and towering above me. "There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nowhere else to go. And the anger, the hatred in his eyes, even though I didn't know what I'd done wrong. He blamed me for everything, the household chores not being done, the food running out, even Mummy dying. Even though I was just a child and I'd have done anything to save her. He hated me, he blamed me and he beat me, and nothing I did would ever make him stop."

"Ali..." I looked 'round at Sam's voice, realising from the pain in his eyes that I'd said more than I ought. I got out when Sam was only a toddler, he didn't know most of what I went through, and he didn't ever need to.

I took several gasping breathes, trying to stop the tears that were falling, trying to steady my voice before I spoke again. "You're not the only one, and you're not special, and it doesn't give you the right to kill them."

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Max still sounded angry, though his grasp on Sam's pistol seemed to have loosened. "How do I know you're not lying like they were?" He gestured at Sam and Dean with the gun, his grip tightening again as his did so. "And why didn't they ever help you?"

I blinked the tears out of my eyes and kept eye contact with Max as I reached up with my good arm and started unbuttoning the plaid shirt I was wearing over a tank top, shrugging my right arm out of the sleeve. "They did help me, they adopted me and got me away from my father years ago, my bones have healed, my bruises faded, even the majority of the scars are difficult to see now, but you'll be able to see this one." I held my arm towards him and stepped carefully and slowly forwards, my brothers shifting uneasily behind me.

"I remember the day he gave me this, I still have nightmares about it. How his footsteps were heavy, but even -sober- as he approached my cupboard. I remember how the light of the hallway was so much brighter that the darkness I was used to, I remember how the light caught on the edge of the blade he was carrying and almost blinded me. I raised my hand to shield my eyes and he grabbed my forearm, pulled me towards him. I remember struggling, pleading with him, 'no, Daddy, no! I'm sorry, I'll be good, I promise!' I don't even remember what I was apologising for, what I'd done wrong, I doubt I even knew. I just know that I was terrified, and he was so much bigger and stronger than me, and I couldn't fight him. He placed the tip of the knife on my arm, here." I pointed, awkwardly with my other arm still in the sling, at the point of the long scar where it started close to my elbow, on the side of my little finger. Then I dragged my finger along the scar that ran a ragged length up towards my wrist, the scar tissue standing out white under the pressure of my finger. "He pressed it in and twisted it. I remember the pain, I remember screaming as he twisted and turned and pulled it, millimeter by millimeter all along my arm."

I raised my eyes from my forearm back to Max, watching him swallow hard. "I was saved, my father is dead and I have a new family now, but I still remember. I still see it in my dreams, and I'm still afraid. Some nights I have to sleep with the light on, otherwise I wake up in the dark, and it's so much like the darkness of the cupboard he kept me in that I don't know it was only a dream; I think I'm back there. The fact that my father is dead, has been for years now, doesn't stop the fear, Max."

His eyes widened, and Sam spoke up from behind me, "That's why you killed them, isn't it? So you wouldn't be afraid of them anymore."

"Just because they're dead, it doesn't stop you being afraid, Max. You just have to... let it go." I gestured vaguely in the direction of the kitchen, where his step-mother still lay, unconscious on the floor.

"You have to let her go, Max." Dean echoed from behind me, Max's eyes snapped over to him and the gun, which had been slowly lowering raised again to point directly at Dean.

"Why?" Max's eyes were narrowed in anger.

"Did she beat you?" Sam tried to reason with him.

"No, but she never tried to save me. She's a part of it too." Max's eyes never drifted from Dean.

"What they did, to you, what they all did to you growing up, they deserve to be punished..."

Max's eyes now focused on Sam, "Growing up? Try last week." He pulled his shirt up at the side to reveal the discolouration spreading across his ribcage. The gun not pointing at any of us for the first time in this whole conversation. "My dad still hit me. Just in places people wouldn't see it. Old habits die hard I guess."

"I'm sorry." Sam's voice was quiet, and I'm sure he was doing the puppy eyes, though I didn't turn around to check.

"When I first found out I could move things; it was a gift." Max wasn't looking at any of us, staring down at the gun in his hand instead, "My whole life I was helpless but now I had this. So last week Dad gets drunk. The first time in a long time. And he beats me to hell, first time in a long time. And then I knew what I had to do."

"Why didn't you just leave?" Sam questioned gently.

"It wasn't about getting away. Just knowing they would still be out there." Max explained and I dropped my eyes, trying to imagine how I would feel if my father was still alive out there. "It was about...not being afraid. When my Dad used to look at me, there was hate in his eyes. Do you know what that feels like?"

 _Yes, I do._

"He blamed me for everything. For his job, for his life, for my Mom's death."

"Why would he blame you for your Mum's death?" I asked, wondering if there was a reason why fathers did that, I'd never worked out why my own father had blamed me for Mummy dying.

"Because she died in my nursery, while I was asleep in my crib. As if that makes it my fault." Max's voice was bitter.

"She died in your nursery?" Sam sounded a little shocked, and honestly the similarities between him and Max were starting to stack up.

"There was a fire." Max explained. "And he'd get drunk and babble on like she died in some insane way. He said that she burned up. Pinned to the ceiling!"

There was silence for a moment, and I turned to look at my brothers, consciously turning my back on Max, hoping that the subliminal message of trust would get through to him. Sam and Dean were staring at each other, clearly shocked before they looked back at first me and then Max behind me. We all knew, we all recognised that description. It was Sam who broke our silence, "Listen to me Max. What your Dad said, about what happened to your Mom. It's real."

"What?" He sounded baffled and I turned back so I could face him again.

"It happened to our Mom too, exactly the same." Sam explained, "My nursery, my crib, my Dad saw her on the ceiling."

Max's eyes, which had been somewhat more open and trusting, closed off, "Your Dad must have been as drunk as mine."

"No, no. It's the same thing, Max." Sam was starting to sound a little excited, probably at the prospect of some answers about what's happening to him, "The same thing killed our mothers."

"That's impossible." Max muttered.

"This must be why I'm having visions during the day." Sam went on, "Why they're getting more intense. Cause you and I must be connected in some way. Your abilities, they started 6-7 months ago, right? out of the blue?"

"How'd you know that?"

"'Cause that's when my abilities started, Max!" And I did some quick maths in my head; had it really been 6 months since we fetched Sam from Stanford? "Yours seem to be much further along but still, this has to mean something right? I mean for some reason, you and I...you and I were chosen."

"For what?" Max asked, though I'm personally more worried by the question ' _by_ what?'

"I don't know. But, Max, we're hunting for your Mom's killer. We can find answers, answers that can help us both. But you gotta let us go, Max. You gotta let your stepmother go."

Max looked down, seeming to contemplate all we'd said while turning the gun over in his hands. Before his face twisted and tears began to gather in his eyes. "No. What they did to me. I still have nightmares. I'm so scared all the time, like I'm just waiting for that next beating. I'm so sick of being scared all the time, I just want this to be over!"

"It won't." I told him, "Don't you get it? The nightmares won't end, Max. Not like this. It's just, more pain. And it makes you as bad as them. Max, you don't have to go through all this by yourself."

Max looked at me, tears starting to fill his eyes, the gun rose from his side, pointing at his step-mother.

"But," I exclaimed, as my brothers and I all took a step to our right to try and place ourselves between the gun and the woman who was just starting to come back to consciousness, "That doesn't mean it'll always be as bad as it is now. Things can get better, Max. The nightmares can be fewer and further between, the fear can fade away with time and distance until it doesn't affect you at all anymore. Until it's nothing more than bad memories."

Max dropped his hand, letting the gun float unsupported in the air. He was shaking his head at me, his face twisting as he tried to contain his tears.

"Max, you are stronger than this. You can let her go and build your own life without letting the past define who you are and who you want to be. Killing her doesn't fix anything, Max. It doesn't take the pain or the nightmares away. Let her go."

Max was shaking slightly as I spoke, still trying to get myself between him and his step-mother. But his eyes were focused on me, he was listening and hearing my words, I could only hope they'd be enough to persuade him. A single sob escaped him before his whole countenance seemed to relax and he nodded slightly at me, "You're right."

I barely had time to smile at him before the gun, still hovering in the air between us swung suddenly to face him and the trigger pulled.

The bang of the gun sounded, followed by a scream from behind me, but it was the sound of the… liquid, splashing against the wall behind where Max had stood and the thud as his body hit the ground that seemed to echo in the hallway.

* * *

I sat beside Ms Miller, patting her hand gently as she spoke to the police officer. She told him that we were family friends whom she'd called to her aide when she'd realised that Max had a gun.

Her words and those of the cop's seemed to wash over me, I was both aware and not as I continued patting Ms Miller's hand, taking enough of her grief to allow her to keep a clear head whilst covering for us, but allowing enough of her grief to remain to prevent the cop from becoming suspicious of an emotionless performance.

The soft splatter sound was still echoing through my memory. The waves of the Deathcry had been soft, almost relieved, as Max had departed this world.

Eventually Ms Miller pulled her hand away from mine, raising it to cover her face as her tears broke through and Dean patted my shoulder, telling me it was time for us to go.

We were out of the house and walking down the path before Sam spoke, "If I'd just said something else. Gotten through to him somehow."

"Ah, don't do that." Dean protested.

"Do what?"

"Torture yourself. It wouldn't have mattered what you said, Max was too far gone. Same goes for you, Ali; Nothing you coulda done. I mean yeah, maybe if we had gotten there 20 years earlier."

I tugged on the car door handle, but Dean hadn't unlocked it yet.

"Well, I'll tell you one thing." Sam said, pausing to stand by the passenger door. "We're lucky we had Dad."

Dean and I both looked up at him, caught between stunned and pleased. "Well, I never thought I'd hear you say that."

Sam shrugged, "Well, it coulda gone a whole other way after Mom. A little more tequila and a little less demon hunting and we woulda had Max's childhood. All things considered, we turned out okay. Thanks to him."

My childhood _did_ go that way, until Dad came along.

* * *

We were packing our bags, I was pleased to be getting out of here; themed motels are never my favourite, and this place was an awful mockery of a hunting lodge.

Sam handed me a crochet hook which had rolled off the bed and spoke quietly. "I've been thinking."

"Well that's never a good thing." Dean joked from across the room.

"I'm serious. I been thinking, this demon, whatever it is. Why would it kill Mom, and Jessica, and Max's mother, you know? What does it want?"

I rolled the hook between my fingers, staring at it. "I don't know."

"Well," Sam pushed on, "you think, maybe, it was after us? After Max and me?"

"Why would you think that?" Dean asked at the same time that I looked up.

"No. If it had wanted you, it would have taken you."

"Well, I mean, either telekinesis or premonitions, we both had abilities, you know? Maybe he was, he was after us for some reason."

"Sam. If it had wanted you, it would've just taken you. Okay?" Dean repeated, "This is not your fault, it's not about you."

"Then what is it about?"

Dean slammed whatever he was holding into his duffel and turned to face Sam, "It's about that damn thing that did this to our family. The thing that we're gonna find, the thing that we're gonna kill. And that's all."

"Yeah, maybe." Sam agreed and Dean turned back to his bag. I closed my own bag and started the final check, make sure we hadn't left a knife under a pillow or anything. "Aren't you worried, man? Aren't you worried I could turn into Max or something?"

"Nope. No way. You know why?" Dean turned to face Sam, bag in hand.

"No. Why?"

"Cause you got one advantage Max didn't have."

Sam scoffed, "Dad? Because Dad's not here, Dean."

"No. Me." I cleared my throat and raised an eye brow at Dean from where I knelt next to a bed I'd been checking under. "Uh, us." Dean corrected himself. "As long as we're around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you."

Sam gave us a little smile and Dean grabbed my bag off the bed. "Now then. I know what we need to do about your premonitions. I know where we have to go."

"Where?"

"Vegas." Dean said it with a completely straight face, but broke and smiled a second later, I shook my head smiling at him and collected the kitchen box, heading out to the car. Sam gave Dean a well deserved bitchface and followed me, Dean's voice calling after us, "What? Come on man. Craps tables. We'd clean up!"


	16. The Benders

Sam and Dean had gone to interview the witness; some kid who'd seen his neighbour be taken by a monster, if the story in the local paper could be believed. The way the article was written suggested that it couldn't but we had decided to check it out anyway. Bobby still hadn't heard anything about Dad, but he'd managed to dedicate a bit more time to his day job, and I'd finally gotten my arm out of that sling, complete with full range of motion. Though raising my arm above my head still hurt, and trying to pull down with it was a real bitch.

I'd actually healed with scar tissue this time, which is unusual for a prangeni. We take much longer to heal than humans do, but that's because humans can quickly and easily make scar tissue, which covers over the hole and lowers the chance of infection. Prangeni generally heal by forming new skin, which has much neater results, but takes longer to form. Only deep cuts, cuts which become infected or cuts which are repeatedly opened will form scars.

I was healed enough to be back in action though. Which was good, because I'd been going stir crazy. Not that this was much different, because Sam and Dean were pretending to be state police and interviewing a witness and I was sat in the car, going through Dad's journal.

"So," The car jostled as my brothers returned, "kid says he heard a monster, looked out the window and didn't see anything. Just saw Mr Jenkins being pulled underneath a car, then heard a 'whining growl' as the monster took 'im away."

"'Whining growl'?" Well that… doesn't narrow it down much. Descriptions of sounds are so subjective anyway, and the number of creatures that growl, or whine for that matter… Maybe some kind of dog-like creature? "Well, maybe I've got something a little more helpful; Dad marked this area." I passed the journal forwards, open to the right page. Dean leaned across to see while Sam took the book, skimming through the information. "Possible hunting grounds of a phantom attacker."

"Why would he even do that?" Dean questioned, sitting back and starting the engine.

"Well, he found a lot of local folklore about a dark figure that comes out at night. Grabs people, then vanishes."

"He found this too," Sam added, "this county has more missing persons per capita than anywhere else in the state."

"That is weird."

"Yeah." Sam muttered, still with his nose in the journal.

"Don't phantom attackers usually snatch people from their beds? Jenkins was taken from a parking lot."

"Well, there are all kinds."Sam explained, raising his head and tilting the journal so Dean could the the pictures which had been inserted, "You know, Spring Heeled Jacks, phantom gassers. They take people anywhere, anytime."

"Spring Heeled Jacks generally hunt at night, they are described as being humanoid, with claws and eyes that burn with fire, they-"

"Yeah, thanks, Encyclopedia, we know what a Heeler is." Dean interrupted me and I huffed, crossing my arms as we pulled into the parking lot of a biker bar.

After Sam and Dean had changed out of the stolen police uniforms and we'd secured a table, beers and a set of darts, Sam and I had settled in to research a bit more about what this thing could be, and Dean was playing darts. By himself, because he threw a hissy fit after I beat him last time, and now I'm not allowed to play.

"So," Sam looked up from his laptop, "local police have not ruled out foul play. Apparently, there are _w_ _ere_ signs of a struggle."

"Well, they could be right, it could just be a kidnapping. Maybe this isn't our kind of gig." Dean threw another dart, and scored 1 point. See, this is how I beat him.

"Yeah, maybe not." Sam acknowledged.

"Except Dad _did_ mark the area," I pointed out, there was a brief pause while Dean collected his darts from the board.

Sam finished his beer, "Look, Dean, I don't know if this is our kind of gig either."

"Yeah, you're right, we should ask around more tomorrow."

"Right. I saw a motel about five miles back." Sam started clearing the table.

"Whoa, whoa, easy. Let's have another round."

"We should get an early start." Sam argued.

"Yeah, you really know how to have fun, don't you, Grandma? Alright, I'll meet you outside, I gotta take a leak." He grabbed his jacket and headed towards the mens' room.

I turned to Sam, holding up Dean's wallet. "I'll get the tab."

Sam just laughed at me and headed outside.

I spent a little while reassuring the bar staff that I was just paying and that orange juice had been my tipple of the evening before following Sam outside. An old, rusty, red camper van was pulling away as I left the bar and a cat was sat atop a car. I cooed at it and reached out to stroke, but he wasn't very friendly and I continued towards the car. Dad's journal and all Sam's research was sitting on the boot. Just sat there, as if he'd put it down and wandered off.

"Sam?" I called, checking inside the car. "Sam?!" I raised my voice, looking around in the darkness. Where the hell had he gone? A few seconds later, still no response and I started to freak out.

The door of the bar opened, the music spilling out into the night before the door slammed shut after Dean. "Dean! Sam's missing!"

"What? You were with him! Where the hell'd he go?"

"I don't know, we separated while I payed the bill and by the time I got out here he was gone!"

Dean turned, surveying the area, and not seeing anything more than I did, "Sammy?!" Then he pointed at a traffic surveillance cam. "There, maybe that saw something. We'll ask the cops in the morning, in the mean time," he held my shoulders, keeping me facing him and I grasped his jacket, only now realising that my breathing was elevated. "What did you see?"

I took a few deep breaths and tried to think. "I was only a minute or so behind him, there was a campervan pulling away when I came out, and there was a cat. I found Dad's journal, Sam must've put it on the car… we should start there."

We searched that parking lot for at least half an hour, but didn't find anything. The parking lot was tarmac, there were no footprints to see, and other than the journal, no clues had been left behind, no blood (thank goodness), nothing! Not even a scent of fear or pain for me to follow.

The next morning Dean took his stolen police badge down to the local Sheriff's Department, he'd get his hands on the footage from the surveillance cam. While he was doing that, I would… try not to panic.

What really got me was the cat, and how I'd been trying to pet it instead of realising that my baby brother was in trouble. How could I? I'm the worst kind of sister. How could I not realise? Not notice that something was wrong? I should hav- wait; that cat was calm.

Most times when a supernatural creature is about animals will sense it and freak out. But the cat was calmly licking his paws when I saw him, and that could only have been seconds after Sam was taken.

So did the cat just not see it? Or maybe whatever had taken Sam, wasn't supernatural? Maybe we _were_ just dealing with a run-of-the-mill kidnapping. Though why anyone would choose to kidnap a guy who's over 6 foot tall and clearly in his prime is anyone's guess. And that campervan; if it was the people that took him, then maybe they drove right passed me!

I'm an awful sister, how could they have driven right passed me and I didn't even know? If I'd just realised, I could have done something! If we'd stayed together, if I'd taken note of the numberplate, or even which direction the van went!

I pulled out my phone, calling Dean and telling him my suspisions. He agreed that we were probably looking for the van that had been there that night, apparently the traffic cam had seen it leaving, and had got a clean shot of the new plates on it. No way those plates belonged on such an old rust bucket. Dean had another lead too, he'd spotted a black van driving around town which had an engine that made a 'whining growl'.

Dean gave me an area to search on maps, he was going to stick with his new cop friend and see what they could find on the ground.

There wasn't much on the map. The area Dean had indicated, along a stretch of highway between a couple of traffic cams (one of which had seen the van, the other hadn't) was pretty boring. There were no junctions marked, no turn offs. But there were a bunch of properties, scattered on either side of the road. It was a stretch of about 50 miles, Sam could be anywhere. I sighed and glanced at my phone, which had been silent for a while now.

Then I grabbed my bag, phone and the key to the motel room and headed out. I found a bicycle on my way out of town and I 'borrowed' it. No, really, I have every intention of returning this bike in the exact same condition as it is now, and it's not like they had it chained up or anything, it was just lying on some kid's front lawn; slowly rusting in the rain.

I had memorised the map, I knew where I was headed, and I knew the size of vehicle that had taken Sam. I followed the route I knew they must have taken until I came to a muddy track on the right hand side. It wasn't much to look at, but there was a cop car parked at the junction, with Dean handcuffed to the door handle.

I dropped the bike and hurried over to him.

"Boy, am I glad to see you. Tell me you got a paper clip or something?"

I scowled at my brother and pulled a lock pick set from my pocket. I started picking the lock just as I heard a motor splutter and cough to life a little way down the path. Dean was soon free and I hissed at him to be quiet as I dragged him away, collecting the bike and taking it and my idiot brother further away, back down the road towards town while a whining, growling engine approached up the path.

Eventually it got close enough that even Dean, with his dull human ears could hear it. "Well, looks like you've got damn good timing."

"What happened?"

"Kathleen ran the badge, turns out I look nothing like Officer Washington. She went to check out this lane about quarter of an hour ago, guess she didn't want me running off in the mean time."

We ducked off the road into the wood line and watched as two unwashed men came into view. They laughed and walked towards the car.

"Well, I've never seen him so angry before." One of them stated.

"Well, Lee, never been followed by the police before." The other answered.

The first, Lee, used a key to unlock the car, and then got in and drove it away, up the driveway.

"Dean..." I turned to face him.

"Yeah, I know." He banged a fist against the tree trunk next to us, "Dammit, I told her not to go in there alone!"

"On the plus side, I'm pretty sure we found Sammy."

He gave me a dark look and started to move away, heading into the woods, parallel to the road. I followed, but I didn't get far before the nausea started.

"Dean," I reached for his sleeve and he stopped turning back to look at me, "These woods are full of deathcries."

"Yeah, pretty sure whatever's going on here, it's been happening for a while." He peered at my face, which was no doubt a pale green, "You want to head back to the road?"

I shook my head, "I'm coming to find Sammy."

I have to. I was the one who lost him.

He nodded to me and we pressed on. Eventually we came to a track, a clearing on the other side was filled with old cars. There were some buildings off to our left and we crouched well within the wood line, just watching for a few minutes.

' _Ali, Dean, where are you guys?'_

The voice was only faint in my head, but it was clearly Sam. "Dean!" I kept my voice low, grabbing his sleeve, "Sam's here! I can hear him!"

"Hear him?"

"Yes, adult prangeni can hear prayers! Or they used to, back when people knew about prangeni and would pray for them to relieve pain. My father told me about it, I've only heard them myself when I'm actually in physical contact with whoever's praying." It doesn't happen often, usually if I'm that close they don't need to pray anymore. "I must be reaching maturity if I can hear Sam now!"

He gave me a slightly weirded out look, "You got a location from that?"

I gestured towards the buildings, I didn't have a location, just a vague direction, kinda like with sound really. Dean nodded and we headed that way, keeping low and staying quiet. The rain was still coming down, helping to mask the slight squelch of our boots through the mud. I could hear the faint sound of music coming from the house, and raindrops dripping all around, drumming on the rooves of the buildings and the cars.

I guided Dean back away from the track as we got closer to the buildings until the barn was between us and the house. Then we started to creep forwards.

"You alright?" That was Sam's voice! Faint, somewhere inside the barn, but definitely Sam, I grinned at Dean and crept closer.

"Are you Sam Winchester?" This voice was unfamiliar to me, female. Dean's cop friend, Kathleen no doubt. "Your, uh, your cousin's looking for you."

"Thank God. Where are they?"

"I, uh—I cuffed him to my car." I could hear the regret in her voice. And grinned as I pulled the door open and Dean and I stepping inside.

"Sammy?" I hurried towards the cage containing my baby brother, "Are you hurt?" I'll never forgive myself if he's been hurt...

"No." Sam shook his head, grinning at us. I sagged in relief, it was like all the air just whooshed out of me; he's okay.

Dean banged his palm against the side of Sam's cage, "Damn, it's good to see you."

"How did you get out of the cuffs?" Kathleen asked from behind us. She had dark, shoulder length hair and pretty, pale grey eyes, and was staring at Dean and me in confusion.

"Oh, I know a trick or two." Dean told her and I snorted, shooting a grin at Sam. "Alright." Dean moved around to the door of Sam's cage. "Oh, these locks look like they're gonna be a bitch."

I joined him, he was right; they were heavy metal, no keyhole, with a thick guarded cable leading into the top of it, and it was solidly welded to the metal of the cage and the door.

"Well, there's some kind of automatic control right there." Sam pointed to a electrical control box on a pillar a few meters away.

"Have you seen 'em?" Dean asked as he went to investigate.

"Yeah. Dude, they're just people."

"And they jumped you? Must be gettin' a little rusty there, kiddo."

"Says they guy who got handcuffed to a cop car." I muttered under my breath. "What do they want?"

"I don't know. They let Jenkins go, but that was some sort of trap. It doesn't make any sense to me."

"Well, that's the point." Dean looked up from the control box where he'd been uselessly pressing buttons, "You know, with our usual playmates, there's rules, there's patterns. But with people, they're just crazy."

"See anything else out there?" Sam asked.

Dean headed back over to where I was now examining the construction of the cage, "Uh, he has about a dozen junked cars hidden out back. Plates from all over, so I'm thinkin' when they take someone, they take their car, too."

"Did you see a black Mustang out there?" Kathleen asked, "About ten years old?"

"Yeah, actually, I did." I looked up at her, her grief suddenly permeating the air of the barn.

"Your brother's?" Dean asked and she nodded. "I'm sorry. Let's get you guys out of here, then we'll take care of those bastards." He pointed at the control panel. "This thing takes a key. Key?"

Sam shrugged at him. And I wrenched on one of the steel rods that formed the top of Sam's cage. He glanced upwards, "You think I haven't already tried that?"

"I think I'm stronger then you." I told him bluntly, levering the bar away from the cage, only to have it spring mostly back into position when I let go.

"Yeah… I'm gonna go find that key." Dean announced, watching me shake out my hands and glare at the metal rod.

"Hey. Be careful." Sam called after Dean as he left, before reaching through the bars to grip my wrist. "Ali, they're steel bars, no human can bend those with their bare hands."

I stopped and gently released the bar, controlling it's return to a position only a couple of centimeters from where it had started. Sam was right, we had a witness and I was the only supernatural thing about this case; it'd be best not to clue her in. Plus my hands were starting to hurt, and this was very slow work.

After considering the cage for a while longer I turned away and snuck after Dean. I considered telling Sam to wait here, or not to go anywhere, but figured he wouldn't appreciate the humour. I stopped at the door, pulling it back far enough to slip through the crack and stepped into the barn beyond. The rain was coming to a stop outside, but the day was still overcast, which actually created better light conditions within the barn; bright sunlight would have created dark shadows, at least this way everything was dark and with my eyes adjusted I could still see, though only in black and white.

I have more light sensitive cells in my eyes than humans do, which means I can see in lower light conditions. The colour sensitivity seems about normal for a female. Colour sensitive cells require more light in order to send a signal to the brain, so in low light humans (and prangeni) see in black and white.

I stayed close to the wall, hugging the shadows as I crept closer to the door, I found a crack in the wall off to one side, and avoiding pressing my eye right against it and becoming visible from the other side, I peered through. Dean had crossed the yard and I was just in time to see him disappearing around the side of the house. I could still hear the old-time music playing from within the house, and something that sounded like chopping.

I watched each of the windows for some time, but could see no movement through the dirt and detritus that was blocking them. Dean's torchlight flashed a couple of times in the cellar, but then disappeared. All was still for a while and I watched, tense and waiting. Debating between going to help,or staying with the helpless caged people.

The peace was interrupted by a girl's shouts inside the house, calling for the attention of her father, then there was a clattering, before all went still again.

That didn't sound good. Sure enough a moment later I could see movement through the grimy windows on the ground floor, possibly someone looking though. I held very still; nothing makes you easier to spot than movement. Once the shadow had moved away from the glass I withdrew and returned to Sam and Kathleen.

"Dean's been captured." I announced quietly as I entered.

"Shit." Was Sam's concise response.

"What happened?" Kathleen asked, her fingers curling though the bars of her cage.

"I don't know, wasn't close enough to see. A girl shouted, then it sounded like a fight, it's gone quiet now." Even the music had stopped.

"I met the girl too. Little psycho." Kathleen commented, sitting back in her cage.

Well, that didn't sound promising. I chewed on my lip as I watched the two in cages and considered my options. I could go in, guns blazing, rescue my brother, find the key and save the day. Probability of success: low. There were at least three people in there, the two men I'd seen earlier and the girl I'd heard shouting. Given neither of the men I'd seen looked old enough to have fathered a girl whose voice sounded at least early teens, I'd say there's likely an older man in there too.

I could stay here, protect Sam and Kathleen, and abandon Dean to whatever had befallen him. Which might be something he could get himself out of, or it might not be. There had been a fight which had ended, and people had appeared in the windows, people plural. Most likely scenario was that Dean had lost the fight. Whether he was hurt, unconscious, or worse remained to be seen. I couldn't sense any pain, but the yard between the barn and the house was wide, even a deathcry probably wouldn't reach me here.

I had to go and find out what had happened to Dean. But the guns blazing plan still didn't sound like a good idea. They'd been alerted to our presence, they'd be watching out for anyone sneaking up on them. But I had to chance it, I couldn't _not_ go after him.

"Okay, look, I'm going after Dean. Sam… don't go anywhere." What can I say, the joke was too good to resist a second time. Though Sam's bitchface told me he didn't agree.

I crept back to my position to the side of the barn door and watched the house carefully for several minutes. I couldn't see anymore movement, not even a twitch of lace curtains. I took a couple of deep breaths then, scurried out the door and across the yard, jumping over and around puddles to avoid any splashing sounds. I hurried to the other corner to where I'd last seen movement and paused for a moment, tucked in against the wall of the house.

I listened carefully and could hear voices and movement, all in the same corner that I'd seen shadows in the windows before. I crept slowly forward, looking for a way into the house and keeping an ear out for any movement in my direction. Nothing much happened until I got to the diagonally opposite corner of the house. I didn't want to round the next corner and risk being seen from the bay window of the room I was still hearing movement from. I took a quick peek around the corner and could see no one in the bay looking out the window, but I'd still rather find another way in. I eventually decided to follow the same route Dean had taken through the cellar.

Taking extra care not to make a sound I lifted the cellar hatch just far enough to slip inside and carefully let it close behind me. Rather than risk a torch I sat still on the stairs and waited a moment for my eyes to adjust. The voices had pretty much fallen silent above, but I could still hear people, hear their weight shifting and was pretty certain they were all still in the same place. Slowly the shadows faded sufficiently into view that I could see outlines of objects, shelving to my right, rows of jars with light glinting off their dusty glass and unidentifiable contents sitting dark within them. I moved cautiously, taking my time to place each step. Haste would cause noise, and I didn't want to loose the element of surprise if I still had it.

The stairs up into the house looked old, the wooden steps were worn in the middle of the treads. It looked solid enough, but there was no guarantee the steps wouldn't creak. Even slow steps sometimes cannot prevent wood from creaking underfoot, it's caused by the movement after all, not the speed with which you move. I ascended the stairs on all fours, spreading my weight somewhat and testing the stairs with my lighter hands first allowed me to discover the fourth step up creaked and I was careful to release the light pressure I had applied and to skip that step.

Once at the top I straightened. The door before me was closed. I stopped here to listen. The movement hadn't changed whilst I'd been creeping through the cellar, and was still all contained in the one place. There was no talking, no sounds to cover the sound of a door opening, so I waited.

I didn't have to wait long, a groan in a familiar voice prompted speech from the others and sheer relief from me as Dean came to consciousness.

"Come on. Let us hunt him."

"Yeah, this one's a fighter. Sure would be fun to hunt." Laughter followed that comment.

Dean's voice responded with the same level of repulsion that I was feeling at the realisation, "Oh, you gotta be kiddin' me. That's what this is about? You - you yahoos hunt people?"

"You ever killed before?"

"Wh-" Dean scoffed slightly, and I shared his amusement, as I carefully took a firm grip on the doorknob, "Well, that depends on what you mean."

"I've hunted all my life." The rough voice sounded slightly gleeful, I used the cover to carefully open the door, slowly releasing the doorknob and gently exhaling as I pushed the door slowly open, a dim hallway coming into view beyond. "Just like my father, his before him. I've hunted deer and bear—I even got a cougar once. Oh boy. But the best hunt is human. Oh, there's nothin' like it. Holdin' their life in your hands. Seein' the fear in their eyes just before they go dark. Makes you feel powerful alive."

"You're a sick puppy."

"We give 'em a weapon. Give 'em a fightin' chance." The voice went on as I approached along the hall, carefully ducking beneath what looked like a wind chimes made of bone. The pelvis dangling from a string would no doubt haunt my subconscious for a while... "It's kind of like our tradition passed down, father to son. Of course, only one or two a year. Never enough to bring the law down, we never been that sloppy."

"Yeah, well, don't sell yourself short. You're plenty sloppy." I silently agreed with my brother as I sidled closer to the doorway. I mean, they hadn't even searched the house or grounds after finding someone sneaking through their house!

"So, what, you with that pretty cop? Are you a cop?"

"If I tell you, you promise not to make me into an ashtray?" Am I a bad person that I had to bite the inside of my lip not to laugh at that?

There was movement within the room and I got as close as I could without being seen. "Only reason I don't let my boys take you right here and now is that there's somethin' I need to know."

"Yeah, how 'bout it's not nice to marry your sister?" _What to do? What to do?_

"Tell me—any of the cops gonna come lookin' for you?" _If I was going with guns blazing, this was as good a time as any._

"Oh, eat me. No, no, no, wait, wait, wait—you actually might." Definitely four people in the room, I didn't know if any of them were armed and Dean was in there too, presumably restrained.

"You think this is funny? You brought this down on my family."He sounded angry, though he didn't have a right in my opinion; how much misery has he brought to other families? To _my_ family if we hadn't found Sam in time? "Alright, you wanna play games? We'll play some games. Looks like we're gonna have a hunt tonight after all, boys." _Time to decide…_ "And you get to pick the animal. The boy or the cop?"

"Okay, wait, wait—look, nobody's comin' for me, alright? It's just us." _Well, I don't have any other plan._ I pulled a pistol from the holster that I'd sewn to the inside of my bag and pulled the magazine of regular bullets checking the top round before gently loading it into the pistol grip and then drawing back the slide.

"You don't choose, I will." Dean was screaming in pain as I stepped through the doorway. I released the slide, loading the first round into the chamber and fired.

The red hot iron rod fell to the ground as the grizzled man holding it crumpled to the ground, a bullet through his head. The two men I'd seen earlier, Lee and the other one, jumped at the sound turning to me with shock in their eyes. I pointed the gun at Lee and pulled the trigger again, the recoil of the pistol causing it to point at the ceiling for a brief second before I was bringing it to bear on his brother. I pulled the trigger a third time, but the shot went wide as I was tackled from the side and I fell to the ground.

The girl was on top of me, screaming, scratching and clawing at me, I threw my elbow back, catching her in the shoulder and knocking her aside enough to buy a second to shoot her brother, who was stalking towards us with murder in his eyes. The bullet caught him in the shoulder and he howled while the girl twisted back over me and brandished a knife towards the hand that was holding the gun.

I brought my elbow back again, the knife cutting my hand as I moved passed it. I caught the girl in the face this time and I twisted under her, sitting up slightly and using my other hand to grab her hand, pushing it back and forcing her knife into her own shoulder.

The man's fist caught me in the forehead and I let the force knock me onto my back. His leg was moving back to kick me. I brought the gun up for a forth time. This time blood blossomed from his chest. He fell. Blood appeared at his lips too.

The girl was whimpering. Dean was panting slightly. The man's last breaths were bubbling. The other two men were dead already.

I pulled myself to my feet, and surveyed the room. The old man was on the ground beside Dean, the hot poker burning a hole through the carpet at his side. Lee was laying twisted away from me, a pool of blood steadily spreading across the floor from where his face rested against the boards. The other man was slowly dying against the wall and the girl appeared to be going into shock.

I kept my eye on her as I walked around behind Dean and started untying the knots that bound him. I planted the gun in his hand, "Watch her."

I carefully pulled Dean's shirt away from his chest where the iron had burned through the fabric. I had to push against his chest to keep him sat still while I unbuttoned his shirt to give me better access. The burn wasn't deep, but it was hurting him. It needed cold water and to be covered over. Though frankly I didn't trust even the water in this place to be clean. The whole house seemed to be filthy. For now it'd just have to air, and I'd relieve the pain for him.

Across the room the girl's whimpers turned to sobs.

"Where's the key?" I asked coldly.

The girl ignored me. "The key, bitch!"

Her sobs turned to howls and she started to scream at me from where she sat. She was gripping her shoulder tightly and blood leaked from between her fingers.

I crossed the room and bent over in front of her. Lowering my voice but keeping it just as cold. "I won't ask nicely a third time."

The blood covered fingers swiped at me, aiming for my face, but I merely stood back, out of reach. Then I grabbed her hand, holding it out the way while I reached for her injured shoulder, pressing my thumb against the wound and making her howl again. "Where's the key?" My voice was getting steadily quieter, like most women, if I'm being loud, there's not much to fear. If I'm really angry, I go quiet. Right now, I was _really_ angry.

The girl gasped, snot and tears running down her face as I let up the pressure on her shoulder. I waited a few seconds, but she made no apparent effort to speak to me. I pressed at her shoulder again, digging my thumb into the knife wound this time. Her screams reached a new pitch and she passed out.

I dropped her and turned back to Dean. He'd been silent, saying not a word since I'd first pulled the trigger. His face was blank and he seemed to be staring unblinkingly at the girl where I'd dropped her. His face was slightly ashen and I stepped close enough to be able to reach to draw his pain away again. He flinched slightly as I touched his hand, but my gaze had been drawn to the glint of a metal chain around the neck of the old man who'd been torturing my brother with a hot iron. I reached out and delicately pulled the chain away trying to touch the corpse as little as possible as I did so.

It wasn't the dead body that bothered me, you can't be a hunter and be disturbed by dead things. It was the fact that he both looked and smelled like he hadn't bathed in years. A key danced along the chain as I lifted it free of the man's shirt. I grinned and pulled it over the man's head, parts of the chain turning red as I did so.

I straightened, holding up the chain, the key dangling from it and grinned at Dean. He looked up at me, but still didn't speak. "What?"

"You tortured her." His voice was even, without inflection.

I tilted my head to one side slightly, I wasn't sure where he was going with this. I _had_ tortured her, but if she'd just told me where the key was I'd have stopped. And if she hadn't involved herself with the fight I'd probably have dismissed her as a threat and ignored her entirely. By fighting me she'd proven that she was an equal, not a mere child, and she had lost any protection that status may have offered her.

"You _tortured_ her!" He looked a little horrified now.

I didn't answer. He clearly had a problem with my actions, and I wasn't sure how badly he'd react. He probably had a point, given I'd found the key without the girls assistance in the end anyway, we could have skipped the torturing, but I hadn't known that at the time. I'm still honestly a little conflicted about leaving her alive. I'm not going to execute her, but it might have been better if she'd died in the fight. As it was, she was too old to unlearn the beliefs she'd been raised with, and if you add in the trauma of having her family killed in front of her (and being tortured) the best case scenario was that she'd spend the rest of her life in the high security wing of a mental hospital. Hopefully she'd get there without killing anyone.

"You tortured her, Alison!" He definitely seemed to be looking for a response from me now. A lack of answer is still a response, and usually not considered a good one. It was time to find something to say.

"Yes. And if she'd had the chance she'd have tortured you. She was a monster, Dean. No different from what we usually hunt."

We stared at each other for a moment longer, I could see various emotions flickering behind Dean's jade green eyes, too fast to identify them. This isn't the first time he's seen me fight or kill. So it wasn't that that was freaking him out, it was just my actions with the girl. He probably sees her as human, but me, I don't. Monsters for me are made by their actions, not their species. That girl was a cannibal, she may or may not have joined in hunting people for sport, but she certainly ate them afterwards. And she'd emitted no distress at all when her father had been torturing Dean. In my mind, that girl was a monster.

Whether or not my actions cast me as a monster too is another matter, of course. A matter that was clearly bothering Dean quite deeply.

If Dean sees me as a monster, he could leave me. I could loose my brother over this.

"She's just a kid." His voice was small as he looked up at me from where he sat.

"She chose to be a fighter. If we hadn't come along her brothers would have hunted Sam like an animal and she would have eaten him for a Sunday roast. She _wasn't_ an innocent." He _had_ to believe me, _had_ to see it the same way I did.

"Sam..." Dean muttered still looking up at me, a little dazed, before he shook himself and stood. "Let's go get Sam and get the hell out of here."

We left the room, leaving the fallen where they lay.

Kathleen had wanted a full explanation of what had happened. We told her Dean had been captured, that they'd been torturing him and talking about killing both her and Sam for sport. We told her I'd shot and killed the three men in self defence and that the girl had been injured by her own knife in the scuffle. It was as close to the truth as it needed to be and the cut on my hand and the scratches and bruises on my face supported the self defence line.

She got very quiet after we told her they'd been hunting people because it was their version of fun.

She called the situation in on her radio and was good enough to warn us to get out of dodge before the state police or FBI could arrive.

"Thanks. Hey, listen, I don't mean to press our luck, but we're kind of in the middle of nowhere. Think we could catch a ride?"

"Start walking." She answered, "Duck if you see a squad car."

"Sounds great to me. Thanks." Sam gave her a smile and set off.

Dean however, hesitated. "Listen, uh… I'm sorry about your brother."

"Thank you." She looked away, blinking back tears. "It was really hard not knowing what happened to him. I thought it would be easier once I knew the truth—but it isn't really."

We left her alone to wait for the back up to arrive, starting the long walk back to town.

"Never do that again." I glanced up at Dean in alarm, thinking he was talking to me.

"Do what?" Sam asked, I didn't want him to know. It had already changed how Dean was looking at me, please don't let Sammy know too!

"Go missin' like that."

Sam laughed, "You were worried about me."

They continued to banter back and forth and I felt the relief flood through me. Dean and I would need to talk more, try to work this out. I was the same person I'd always been, willing to do just about anything to protect these boys, and I really didn't want the way they see me to change.

I'd never stop protecting them, but I'd much rather do it as their sister than as some psychopath who tortures people for fun. It would be miserable, to be on the outside looking in. Never able to laugh and joke with them, to share a meal, to cuddle up at night. They are my family, I can't loose them.

Once we were back at the motel, and Sam was taking a much needed shower, I finally had a chance to talk to Dean alone. Not that talking to Dean about deep stuff is ever easy.

"Dean? Are you still bothered by what happened in the house?"

He hadn't quite been able to meet my eye since we'd left the farm, and now was no exception. "She was just a kid, Ali. If actions make the monster, what do your actions make you?"

He was right in a way, the girl hadn't chosen to been born into that family, raised in that way. But then, most of the creatures we hunt and kill for what they are didn't chose to be what they are either. I pointed this out to Dean, but he remained silent, staring off to one side with a frown on his face. "Her species doesn't excuse her actions, if anything being human makes her worse than most of the things we hunt."

I let my words sink in for a while, going back over the whole event in my head. Had I defined myself as a monster? Did I regret what I'd done? If I could go back, what would I change?

In the end I don't know that I'd have changed anything, but I do know that I regret Dean seeing me torture the girl. Did I regret actually doing it? I'm not sure. I didn't learn anything from it, so there was no real need for it. As for the pain I'd caused… perhaps I'm not the best judge. I'd certainly been through worse when I was smaller than her, but that didn't mean it wasn't awful for her. Certainly the emotionally scaring would last a long time, quite possibly for the rest of her life, but that was mostly a result of seeing her family die.

Did it make me a monster? I'm not sure. Did it make me like my father? ...Maybe it did. That was a scary thought. My father was definitely a monster, but part of that was the fact that he'd chosen to torture and feed from his own child.

I hadn't tortured the girl for my own satisfaction; for food or for fun. I'd needed information and believed that she would give it to me. I'd treated her as a monster, not as a human child, but in the end she was still a sentient being. There should always be a question over the correct treatment of any sentient being.

If it had been just a normal hunt, if it hadn't been Sam in that cage, if they hadn't burned Dean, would I still have done the same thing? ...Probably not.

I was vicious because they had attacked my family, and the girl was the last target to take it out on. Attacking isn't a healthy coping mechanism, I should probably work on that.

I picked at the scab slowly forming over the cut on my hand. The cut from the same knife that had stabbed into the girl's shoulder.

Am I a monster? Dad always kind of saw me that way, I think. Ever since I told him I wasn't human. He changed how he treated me after that, training me to be useful, faithful. A soldier. Never a daughter.

But Sam and Dean didn't see me that way. They thought of me as a sister and I'd give anything to keep that privilege. I don't want to be a monster, I don't want to be _seen_ as a monster.

A tear leaked out of my eye, stinging as it rolled over the scratches on my face. I brushed it away.

I regretted being seen torturing the girl. Part of me regrets doing it at all, another part just sees her as a monster who hurt my family. No doubt the same way she sees me.

It really wasn't her fault, being born into that family, being raised that way. I wonder, if I hadn't been rescued from my father, if I'd survived long enough to be brought up that way, if my father had found another food source, would I have become a monster? Would I have deliberately hurt others for my own benefit?

Hadn't I done that in a way today anyway? Is it strange that if she'd died instead, I wouldn't be questioning myself over this? I'd have called her a monster and good riddance, but she hadn't died, she'd been tortured. By me.

Dean interrupted my thoughts by reaching out and pulling my injured hand towards him, examining the cut. "We need to clean this."

He fetched the first aid kit from his duffel and started rubbing an alcohol wipe over the cut, clearing the dried blood away and stinging slightly. We sat in silence until Sam came out of the bathroom, steam following him into the room. We chatted for a while and then Sam turned the lights out and got into bed, sighing as he stretched out and relaxed back into the pillow.

Dean settled himself into the other bed and I retreated to a chair by the window. I pulled one foot up onto the chair and rested my chin on my knee, staring out the window. I was tired and wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed with a brother, safe and sound and loved.

But Dean wouldn't want a monster curling up with him or with Sammy.

So I'd sit by the window and keep watch. Dad taught me to do this when we were little. Whenever he was hunting something and we were staying in the same town, I was expected to watch over the boys while they slept, keep them safe until Dad came home. I was in Dad's eyes a creature, not a child. A young creature, maybe, but that only meant that I could be moulded, shaped into the loyal soldier he needed. Dean will see me that way now too, only this is worse; Dad never had a reason to mistrust me. I had never shown any inclination to be violent, to attack without provocation. Dean watched me torture a child. A monstrous child, but still a child. Why would he ever trust me again?

"Aren't you tired?" Dean's voice was low, careful not to disrupt Sam's snores.

I didn't move, I didn't want to have to speak out loud and acknowledge my loss. I wanted him to fall asleep so I could mourn without making him feel guilty.

"Come to bed, Ali."

I shook my head slightly, "I'm fine here."

"It wasn't a request."

He was sitting up in bed, the covers pushed down and one arm gesturing to me. His face didn't show anything. I stood and moved slowly towards him. Once I was close enough he caught hold of my wrist and tugged me down into the bed. "It's okay, Ali. I got you."

I waited until his breathing had deepened before I let the tears fall.


	17. Shadows

Another week, another hunt, another state, another motel room. This one distinguishable from all the others only by the noise of traffic outside the window. I stood looking out of that window, watching the traffic drift slowly passed. We didn't work many jobs in cities. Mostly because Dean hated driving in traffic. Not that I blame him, Baby wasn't built for traffic and confining cities, she was built for the open road, to roar as she sped over the black-top. I sighed and dropped the curtain back into place.

Sam and Dean had left about quarter of an hour ago to investigate the scene of a recent death. A woman, Meredith Redgrave, had been found dead in her apartment. No signs of forced entry, door still closed, alarm still on. The newspaper reports described the attack as brutally violent, but didn't give much detail beyond that. If it were a one off, we might have skipped over it, but this was the second such murder in Chicago over the last two months.

Other than the nature of the deaths, violent attacks inside locked homes, there didn't seem to be anything connecting the two victims. My phone rang and I answered, I'd been waiting for the call.

"Hey, so Landlady says she found Meredith a few days after she died, says she was in pieces all over the apartment, like a wild animal tore her apart. Windows and door locked, chain still on the door, alarm still on. She kept giving us flack about that one, I still say the stupid costumes were overkill." Dean wasn't fond of the boiler suit with name tag deals that Sam had insisted were required. We'd never used them before, but equally, we hadn't always been granted entry, and then they know your face if you try to break in later.

"No signs of a struggle and police found no weapons, no prints, nothing." Sam chips in, his voice a little muffled over the phone which was clearly on loudspeaker. "I'm tellin' ya, the minute I found that article, I knew this was our kind of gig."

The EMF Meter squealed, "I think I agree with you."

"So, you talked to the cops?" I asked.

"Uh, yeah." Dean replied, "I spoke to Amy, a, uh, charming, perky officer of the law."

"Yeah? What'd you find out?"

"Well, she's a Sagittarius. She loves tequila, I mean—wow. Oh, and she's got this little tattoo—"

"Dean!" Sam shouted, and I just rolled my eyes.

"What? Yeah. Uh, nothin' we don't already know. Except for one thing they're keeping out of the papers."

"Yes?"

"Meredith's heart was missing."

Heart? Well, the number of creatures that are interested in hearts is, frankly, disturbingly high. Werewolves are probably best well known, and I reached for a lunar calendar. I already knew it hadn't been a full moon, but it's like when you know it's Monday, but still have to check. Other creatures include Skinwakers, which are similar to werewolves, but have control both over when they shift and their behaviour once shifted, Lamia, Qareen, there's plenty of things out there, and I really ought to start a filing system on symptoms left on victims and other identifying features.

"So, what do you think did it to her?" Sam broke into my thoughts.

"Well, the landlady said it looked like an animal attack. Maybe it was—werewolf?"

"No, not werewolf, the lunar cycle's not right."

"Plus," Sam added, "if it was a creature, it would've left some kind of trace. It's probably a spirit."

There was a short pause and then; "See if you can find any masking tape around."

...What? "Ugh, Dean? You wanna give me an audio of whatever you've found?"

"In a minute, just gotta connect the dots first, Ali."

There was rustling on the end of the phone, I let it continue for a while before getting bored of flicking through Dad's journal for creatures/spirits that take hearts. "Sam? What's going on?"

"Dean's taping between dot's of blood on the carpet."

So, when Dean said he had to connect… "Dean, that joke was awful!"

Dean chuckled and then the rustling seemed to stop.

"Ever see that symbol before?"

"Never."

"Me neither."

"And I still haven't. Audio only here, people!"

"We'll tell you when we get back."

* * *

Sam and I were meeting Dean at the bar where Meredith had worked. Sam and Dean had returned to the motel room with a photo of a vaguely familiar symbol and Sam and I had been scouring our small library and the Internet ever since trying to place it. We'd found nothing. So hopefully Dean will have something after speaking to Meredith's colleagues.

"I talked to the bartender." Dean announced as he joined us at a small table.

"Did you get anything? Besides her number?"

"Dude, I'm a professional. I'm offended that you would think that." Sam and I simply looked at him, he lasted about two seconds before chuckling and holding up the napkin, "All right, yeah."

"You mind doin' a little bit of thinking with your upstairs brain, Dean?"

Dean rolled his eyes, "Look, there's nothing to find out. I mean, Meredith worked here, she waited tables, everyone here was her friend. Everybody said she was normal. She didn't do or say anything weird before she died, so—what about that symbol, you find anything?"

"Nope, nothing." Sam dropped Dad's journal to the table between us. "It wasn't in Dad's journal or in any of the usual books. We just have to dig a little deeper, I guess."

"Well, there was a first victim, right? Before Meredith?"

"Right. Yeah." Sam pulled the newspaper clipping from the journal and handed it to Dean. "His name was, uh—"

"His name was Ben Swardstrom." I provided. "Last month he was found mutilated in his town house. Same deal—the door was locked, the alarm was on."

"Is there any connection between the two of them?"

"Not that I can tell—I mean, not yet, at least. Ben was a banker, Meredith was a waitress. They never met, never knew anyone in common—they were practically from different worlds."

"So, to recap, the only successful intel we've scored so far is the bartender's phone number." Dean smirked at us and waved the napkin.

"Which bartender?" Dean turned and pointed over his shoulder at a pretty brunette. "Her?" He grinned, clearly proud of himself. "The one with the itch downstairs?" His smile dropped.

"Seriously?" He threw the napkin to the table, frowning at it as if it had personally offended him.

Sam got up, focused on something on the other side of the room.

"Sammy?" We were ignored and exchanged a glance before getting up to follow Sam across the crowded bar.

He approached a girl with short blonde hair sitting at a table by herself and tapped her on the shoulder. "Meg?"

"Sam! Is that you? Oh, my God!" She stood and hugged him. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm just in town, visiting friends."

Meg looked around as if expecting to be able to recognise these mysterious friends. "Where are they?"

"Well, they're not here right now, but what about you, Meg? I thought you were going to California." Dean and I caught up with them at this point.

There was something… off about this girl. I tuned out their words, while I hovered a little behind Dean and peered at her.

I couldn't _see_ anything wrong. I couldn't quite put my finger on _what_ it was that was bothering me, I just knew something was wrong.

Dean cleared his throat and I tuned back in to the conversation in time to hear the girl remonstrating him, "Dude, cover your mouth."

Sam introduced us both, seeming slightly embarrassed. As I moved forward to shake her hand, I got a clearer sense of her, and I realised; she was screaming! She was screaming on the inside.

That's why she'd seemed so strange to me: I'd sensed the pain but hadn't recognised it as coming from this woman, who also seemed to be perfectly fine? How was that possible?

I gave a somewhat tight smile and backed away, confused by what I'd sensed.

"Oh, yeah. I've heard of you. Nice—the way you treat your brother like luggage." What?

"Why don't you let him do what he wants to do?" She went on, "Stop dragging him over God's green earth."

Sam intervened and after an awkward pause Dean excused himself to grab a drink and I followed after him.

"Sam, I'm sorry. It's just—the way you told me they treat you...if it were me, I'd kill them." Her voice drifted after us, but was soon lost in the busy bar.

That girl was seriously disturbing. I'd not recognised her as the one who was screaming because I could sense her, and she was perfectly fine, so I'd initially assumed the screaming was coming from someone else. Only when I'd gotten closer had it become obvious that it was actually coming from the same source as the 'perfectly okay' that I could also sense. Maybe she had multiple personalities?

It wasn't until Sam had collected us and we were leaving that bar that Dean let his irritation show. "Who the hell was she?"

"I don't really know. I only met her once. Meeting up with her again? I don't know, man, it's weird."

"And what was she saying? We treat you like luggage? What, were you bitchin' about us to some chick?"

I had a few questions about that myself to be honest.

"Look, I'm sorry, Dean. It was when we had that huge fight when I was in that bus stop in Indiana. But that's not important, just listen—"

"Well, is there any truth to what she's saying? I mean, are we keeping you against your will, Sam?"

"No, of course not. Now, would you listen?"

"What is it, Sam?" I cut in before Dean could continue.

"I think there's something strange going on here."

"Yeah, tell me about it. She wasn't even that into me." Dean muttered behind us.

"You mean aside from the possible multi-personality disorder?"

"No, man, I mean like our kind of strange. Like, maybe even a lead. Wait, multi-personality?"

"Yeah, it was like she was both doing great and screaming in pain. Both from the same source. Kinda freaky."

"Weird." Dean agreed before turning to Sam. "Why do you think she's weird?"

"I met Meg weeks ago, literally on the side of the road. And now, I run into her in some random Chicago bar? I mean, the same bar where a waitress was slaughtered by something supernatural? Don't _you_ think that's a little weird?"

"I don't know, random coincidence. It happens."

"Yeah, it happens, but not to us." I pointed out.

Sam nodded in agreement, "Look, I could be wrong, I'm just saying that there's something about this girl that I can't quite put my finger on."

Dean smirked at him, "Well, I bet you'd like to. I mean, maybe she's not a suspect, maybe you've got a thing for her, huh? Maybe you're thinking a little too much with your upstairs brain, huh?" Sam and I simultaneously rolled our eyes at him.

"Do me a favour. Check and see if there's really a Meg Masters from Andover, Massachusetts," he turned to me, "and see if you can't dig anything up on that symbol on Meredith's floor."

"What are you gonna do?"

"I'm gonna watch Meg."

Dean and I teased Sam a little more before leaving him with the car and heading back to the motel. Dean used Sam's laptop to check out Meg Masters from Massachusetts and I leafed through Dad's journal again. I know I'd seen this symbol before, the knowledge felt like it was right at the edge of my brain. Eventually I gave up and picked up the phone. I got halfway through dialling Bobby's number before I paused. I can't remember for certain, but I don't think I've seen the symbol in any of Bobby's books. I turned to the back of Dad's journal and ran my finger down the list of contacts. I hovered over Pastor Jim for a moment. Had I seen this symbol flicking through the pages of books stored in the basement of his church?

Finally I settled on calling Caleb, not that I had any solid memories that lead me to believe he could help, just a vague feeling that this was the right number to dial. Also, I hadn't spoken to Caleb in a while, and he may have heard from Dad since I spoke to him last.

Caleb hadn't spoken to Dad, but he was able to identify the symbol when I described it, as the sigil for a daeva. Once he said it, of course, I remembered. Daeva, demons of darkness. Savage and mostly uncontrollable. Strong in this realm, but unable to travel here without assistance, they must be summoned by use of this sigil. Not that anyone had been so foolish for thousands of years, which meant that there was very little in the Lore on how to kill them. I thanked Caleb for his help and he promised to call us back if he found anything on how to kill them.

Once I hung up, Dean plucked the phone from my hand and dialled another number, holding the phone to his ear. "Let me guess. You're lurkin' outside that poor girl's apartment, aren't you?"

"No." Dean and I waited silently, trying to stifle our laughter. "Yes."

"You've got a funny way of showin' your affection."

"Did you find anything on her or what?" Sam sounded rather irritated.

"Sorry, man, she checks out. There is a Meg Masters in the Andover phone book. I even pulled up her high school photo. Now, look, why don't you go knock on her door and, uh, invite her to a poetry reading, or whatever it is you do, huh?"

I had to cover my laughter with a hand over my mouth, but Sam ignored his comment. "What about the symbol? Any luck?"

"Yeah, that I did have some luck with." He pulled my notes towards himself. "It's, uh—turns out it's Zoroastrian. Very, very old school, like two thousand years before Christ. It's a sigil for a daeva."

"What's a daeva?"

"It translates to "demon of darkness". Zoroastrian demons, and they're savage, animalistic, you know, nasty attitudes—kind of like, uh, demonic pit bulls." He was reading almost word for word from my notes.

"How'd you figure that out?"

"Give me some credit, man. You don't have a corner on paper chasin' around here." I leant back in my chair, arms folded and eyebrow raised.

"Oh, yeah? Name the last book you read."

Dean rolled his eye's a little. "No, Ali called Dad's friend, Caleb. He ID'd the symbol and Ali seemed to pull the rest of that knowledge out of thin air."

Sam snorted with laughter at the end of the phone and I leaned forward again, Dean putting the phone on loudspeaker as I joined their conversation. "Anyway, here's the thing—these daevas, they have to be summoned, conjured."

"So, someone's controlling it?"

"Yeah, and, from what I gather," Dean was still browsing through my notes, "it's pretty risky business, too. These suckers tend to bite the hand that feeds them. And, uh, the arms, and torsos."

"So, what do they look like?"

"Well, nobody knows, nobody's seen 'em for a couple of millennia. I mean, summoning a demon that ancient? Someone really knows their stuff. I think we've got a major player in town."

There was a brief silence before Dean changed the subject. "Now, why don't you go give that girl a private strip-o-gram?"

"Bite me."

"No, bite her. Don't leave teeth marks, though-" The line went dead. "Sam? Are you-?"

"He's gone, Dean. And I don't blame him."

I left Dean to start tidying the notes away while I put together a light supper. Despite it being quite late, none of us had eaten anything yet.

Dean disappeared for a while, then returned a couple of files in hand, which he dumped on the table just as I was serving up spaghetti and meatballs.

We grabbed a file each and went through, each reading out one thing at a time and the other replying with the same feature from their file. Age, gender, hair colour, address and so on. I was down to my last meatball before we got a match. "Place of birth: Lawrence, Kansas."

"Law...rence, Kansas."

We stared at each other across the table but didn't get a chance to react before the door opened and Sam strode through.

Dean rose to greet him and they spoke at the same time. "Dude, I gotta talk to you."

I pushed Sam into my seat at the table, replacing my mostly finished food with a fresh plate of spaghetti and leant against the counter finishing my meal while Sam mostly ignored his, too agitated to get more that a few mouthfuls in between his explanation.

He'd followed Meg to a condemned warehouse, climbed the elevator shaft and spied on her on the top floor speaking to someone he couldn't hear through a bowl at a dark alter. After she'd left he'd examined the alter and had found the zoroastrian sigil painted in what looked like blood onto a mirror.

"So, hot little Meg is summoning the daeva?" Dean summarised.

Sam nodded shoving another mouthful of spaghetti into his mouth and speaking with his mouth full. "Looks like she was using that black altar to control the thing."

"So, Sammy's got a thing for the bad girl." Dean teased, laughing at Sam as ducked my swipe at his head for his poor table manners. "And what's the deal with that bowl again?"

Sam swallowed before answering this time. "She was talking into it. The way witches used to scry into crystal balls or animal entrails. She was communicating with someone."

"With who? With the daeva?"

"Pretty sure communication is beyond their skill set."

Sam paused, spaghetti unravelling from the fork halfway to his mouth, "No, this was someone different. Someone who's giving her orders. Someone who's coming to that warehouse."

Dean frowned for a moment then grabbed the folder that had fallen closed on the table in front of him. "Holy crap. What I was gonna tell you earlier; I pulled a favour with my – friend, Amy, over at the police department. The complete records of the two victims; we missed something the first time."

Sam leant forward peering at the folders, "What?"

Dean turned the two folders explaining to Sam what we'd discovered just before he'd arrived.

Lawrence, Kansas. It had to be significant, surely.

I tuned out the boys voices as they discussed the plan, Dean suggesting an interrogation of the girl (his eyes darting towards me) and Sam insisting a stake out was the better choice.

Why Kansas? Was it the place that held some significance? Had Mary been killed because of where she lived?

Or were these murders more... sinister? After all, Max Miller hadn't lived in Kansas, and his mother had been killed the exact same way. Perhaps what Sam had said to Max, about them being chosen was correct. In which case, the link to Lawrence, the reason for choosing victims from Lawrence, may have been to get our attention. But then why Chicago?

We had come in response to the murders, and (assuming that my far flung theory held any truth whatsoever) it's possible that the murders would have continued, always picking people from Lawrence, until they'd gained our attention. But that was a disturbing thought as well; it meant that whatever was behind this had been keeping tabs on us, knew that we were hunters and would respond to something like this. Perhaps if there were any more Chosen they were also being brought to Chicago? Brought by whatever means would prove most effective.

Why Chicago? Perhaps simply convenience? It's relatively centrally placed and if the distribution of Chosen happened to be relatively high in the nearby area it's possible Chicago bears no more significance than simple logistics.

Though I still have no clue as to the motivation for gathering Chosen to one location. The big question remains: Chosen for what?

Of course, all of that relies on my assumptions being correct, if I was wrong about anything, it could drastically change the picture.

I mean, and we really are talking far fetched now; it might be a complete coincidence that the people the deava killed were both from Kansas. Of course, when you add in Meg and her connection to both the deava and Sam, that theory become a little ridiculous.

I was shaken from my reverie by Sam standing and heading out the door. Dean was pulling his phone from his pocket and I started gathering the dirty dishes as Dean left a voice mail for Dad. "We think we've got a serious lead on the thing that killed Mom. So, uh, this warehouse—it's 1435 West Erie. Dad, if you get this, get to Chicago as soon as you can."

Sam returned as I finished washing up and dropped a heavy duffel bag on the bed. "I ransacked that trunk. Holy water, every weapon that I could think of, exorcism rituals from about a half dozen religions. I'm not sure what to expect, so I guess we should just expect everything."

They each grabbed a gun, loading rounds into magazines.

"Big night." Dean commented after a moment.

"Yeah. You nervous?"

"No. Why, are you?"

"No. No way."

My brothers are terrible liars.

"God, could you imagine if we actually found that damn thing? That demon?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, all right?"

"Dean's right, Sam. Demons are tricky bastards to kill, exorcism is a more realistic goal."

"I know. I'm just saying, what if we did? What if this whole thing was over tonight? Man, I'd sleep for a month. Go back to school—be a person again."

"You wanna go back to school?" Dean stopped loading rounds, a sting of betrayal souring his 'scent'.

"Yeah, once we're done huntin' the thing." He glanced up at Dean. "Why, is there somethin' wrong with that?"

"No. No, it's, uh, great. Good for you."

"I mean," Sam seemed a little hesitant, "what are you gonna do when it's all over?"

"It's never gonna be over. There's gonna be others. There's always gonna be somethin' to hunt."

"But there's got to be something that you want for yourself—"

"Yeah, I don't want you to leave the second this thing's over, Sam." He turned and walked over to the dresser, which was about as far as the room would let him get.

"Dude, what's your problem?"

"We missed you, Sammy."

Sam stared at me, Dean stood at the dresser with his head bowed and silence reigned for several beats.

"Ali, we are a family. I'd do anything for you guys. But things will never be the way they were before."

"Could be." Dean muttered to the magazine he was still holding.

"I don't want them to be." Sam spoke to his back, "I'm not gonna live this life forever. Dean, when this is all over, you're gonna have to let me go my own way."

Dean turned back and the two shared a look for a few moments. I didn't bother trying to read it, I just reached into the duffel for a rifle of my own and began loading.

* * *

Sam showed us the elevator shaft he had climbed and I'd been at a significant disadvantage climbing the damn thing with my shoulder still aching whenever I use my left arm. Plus the foot holds where a long way apart, which wasn't much of a problem for my gigantor brothers, but I'm only 5'3"; those are big steps!

Finally we reached the top floor, where there was a slight gap in the gate, first Sam, and then Dean squeezed through the gap, passing the duffel bag up. They retreated with it out of my sight, silent so as not to disturb Meg, who was chanting in Latin. I was following my brothers, but I stopped when I got to the point where I could see over the edge of the floor.

There were two, huge – shadow beasts! They appeared to be made of clouds of darkness, swirling and constantly moving with darker pits somehow visible in the blackness of their faces indicating where their distorted features lay. They were humanoid, standing at about 7 feet tall, one either side of the blonde girl who had her back to us, facing her alter.

Sam and Dean were proceeding into the room, watching the girl, but completely ignoring the shadow beasts, which must surely have been the daeva! Could they not see them? How they not see them? Scary, seven foot, black masses of seething darkness! Kinda hard to miss!

And yet Sam and Dean didn't even glance at them. They were retreating to the far end of the room, drawing weapons and aiming them at Meg. I was frozen, terrified by the idea that my brothers would be helpless against this threat. They didn't even know they were there!

"Guys." Meg's Latin chant abruptly changed to English as she shifted her posture. "Hiding's a little bit childish, don't you think?"

"Well, that didn't work out like I planned." Dean muttered.

Meg turned to face them, not even glancing at where I was still frozen peering over the edge of the floor in the elevator shaft. "Why don't you come out?" They moved out from behind the crates they'd been using as cover, still with rifles levelled at her. "Sam, I have to say, this puts a real crimp in our relationship."

"Yeah, tell me about it." He sassed back at her.

"So, where's your little daeva friend?" Dean asked, proving my theory that he couldn't see the demon which was now standing exactly between me and Meg, nor the one standing directly in front of him.

"Around." She answered, as I started shifting silently towards the gap in the gate. "You know, that shotgun's not gonna do much good."

"Oh, don't worry, sweetheart. The shotgun's not for the demon."

"So, who is it, Meg?" Sam asked, "Who's coming? Who are you waiting for?"

"You." She smiled sweetly and I launched myself from the gap straight at her. The writhing darkness of the daeva had become more agitated, the darkness swirling faster as it moved towards Sam. I partially collided with it as I attacked Meg. I didn't really want them to know that I could see them.

The other threw Dean back into the crates before attacking me. I was still going for Meg, an iron blade pulled from a scabbard at the small of my back. The blade had met resistance in my hand as I'd passed the daeva but I hadn't turned to see. The furious screech telling me enough.

I didn't reach Meg. The daeva were fast. They were both on me before I got to her. A shot rang out. Pain blossomed in my side and my leg. Then something collided with my head and the world went dark.

* * *

A mocking, laughing voice, interspersed with the deeper, angrier tones of my brothers were the first things I was aware of.

The pain was the second.

My left side and right leg were throbbing hotly. My head was stinging, both at my forehead where it was in contact with the cold, dirty floor and the spot at the back of my skull were I vaguely remember something hitting me.

I could smell my brothers' pain too, and I tilted my head slightly to be able to see them. Even that small movement caused black spots to appear in my vision. I laid still after that, just focussing on the sounds, trying to make sense of the words.

Dean was speaking "-why don't you kill us already?

"Not very quick on the uptake, are we?" Meg's voice seemed to amplify the pounding in my skull. "This trap isn't for you."

"Dad. It's a trap for Dad." Sam's wasn't nearly so bad for my head, why can't they all speak in Sam's voice?

"Oh, sweetheart—you're dumber than you look." Dean's voice is good too. Dean can use his own voice, it might get confusing if _everyone_ used Sam's voice. "'Cause even if Dad was in town, which he is not, he wouldn't walk into something like this. He's too good."

"He is pretty good. I'll give you that. But you see, he has one weakness."

Is the floor moving? I kinda feel like it's swinging. "What's that?"

"You. He lets his guard down around his boys, lets his emotions cloud his judgment. I happen to know he is in town. And he'll come and try to save you. And then the daevas will kill everybody—nice and slow and messy." Pretty sure I'm already messy. I think that warm wet I'm lying in might be blood. Smells like blood. Good job I'd worn my red shirt today.

"Well, I've got news for ya. It's gonna take a lot more than some… shadow to kill him." Should I be paying attention to this? They'd been talking for ages.

"Oh, the daevas are in the room here—they're invisible. Their shadows are just the only part you can see." Shadow is all they are, even for me and I _can_ see them.

"Why you doing this, Meg?" Sam asked as I made more of an effort to clear my hazy thought processes. "What kind of deal you got worked out here, huh? And with who?"

"I'm doing this for the same reasons you do what you do; loyalty, love. Like the love you had for Mommy—and Jess." Bitch!

"Go to hell." You tell 'er, Sammy!

"Baby, I'm already there. Come on, Sam. There's no need to be nasty." Okay I need to take stock of how badly I'm really hurt. "I think we both know how you really feel about me. You know, I saw you watching me—changing in my apartment. Turned you on, didn't it?" Eww, not helping my concentration.

"Get a room, you two."

Okay, so the cut in my leg wasn't too deep, it would sting like hell and I'd probably need adrenaline to be able to use it, but no serious damage done.

"I didn't mind. I liked that you were watching me. Come on, Sammy. You and I can still have a little dirty fun." I repeat: Eww. And the kissy noises only further my previous statement.

"You wanna have fun? Go ahead then. I'm a little tied up right now." Could be worse, I could be Sam. He definitely drew the short straw here.

The cut to my side was more worrying, just because of the number of organs it may have come close too. I could smell blood, but no other internal parts, which is a good sign, means my digestive system probably hasn't been punctured, and the ease with which I'm breathing gives the same reassurance about my lungs. It's probably just a superficial cut there too. The size of the puddle is a little alarming though. That indicates I've lost a fair bit of blood.

"Now, were you just trying to distract me while your brother cuts free?"

"No. No. That's because I have a knife of my own." There was a thud and a spark of pain from Sam.

"Sam! Get the altar." I pried my eyes open in time to see Sam over turning the thing, assorted bones and candles scattering across the floor. The daeva started their writhing again and they each grabbed one of Meg's legs, dragging her screaming across the window. They tossed her through the window and her screams cut off a moment later.

Sam peered down after her, "So, I guess the daevas didn't like being bossed around."

Dean was suddenly at my side, rolling me gently onto my back, "Hey, Ali, you still with me?"

"mm 'ere." slurred speech, a sign of a concussion.

Pressure wrapped around my leg, a field bandage being formed from something. Something soft pressed firmly into my side and I gasped as fabric pressed into the cut there.

"Sorry." Sam whispered, lifting me into a sitting position and tying something around my torso to keep what felt like a waded up jacket pressed into my side. Dean's fingers pressed gently into my head, checking how bad it was and causing me to grit my teeth so as not to moan.

"You're okay, nothing fractured." Came the verdict, and with the withdrawal of his fingertips I opened my eyes.

There was a daeva just over his shoulder! I tensed, then winced, closing my eyes again and groaning.

"You're okay, I got you." Dean gently lifted me into a sitting position and then up into his arms. I kept my gaze fixed on the floor, not wanting to lift my eyes and find the daeva still following. They'd have attacked by now if they were going to, it was better to watch them and try to work out why they were still here, holding back, rather than give away my trump card that I could see the hideous bastards. Now I just needed to find some way to alert my brothers that we were being watched.

* * *

"Why didn't you just leave that stuff in the car?" Dean asked, as he carried me up to the motel room door. I had my arms looped around his neck, eyes downcast watching as two sets of shadow legs followed us along the hall.

"I said it before, and I'll say it again—better safe than sorry." In this case I couldn't agree more! I still hadn't figured out how to alert Sam and Dean, nor how to kill, or even just get rid of these bastards.

Sam unlocked the door and entered ahead of us, before shouting in alarm "Hey!" Dean pushing into the room after him, jostling me into one arm so he could draw a pistol with the other and I hit the light switch as we passed. "Dad?"

"Hey, boys. What the hell happened to her?" Dean placed me carefully on the bed before turning and hugging Dad. Sam fetched the first aid kit and knelt next to me, casting sad glances at Dad and Dean.

"Sammy," I whispered to him, reaching out to the scratch on his face, "We got something stuck to our shoe."

He frowned at me briefly before Dad spoke, "Hi Sam."

"Hey, Dad." He rose to stand and face Dad and Dean took his place, fishing an alcohol wipe from the first aid kit.

He tore it open, dodging my attempts to reach for him, "Dad, it was a trap. I didn't know, I'm sorry."

"It's all right. I thought it might've been."

"Were you there?" He started untying Sam's red hoodie where it was wrapped just below my ribcage and I grabbed at his hands to stop him.

"Yeah, I got there just in time to see the girl take the swan dive. She was the bad guy, right?" Then he snapped at me, "Ali, hold still and let him fix you up."

"Poughkeepsie!" Dean frowned at me, and switched his attention to the fabric tied tightly around my leg.

"Yes, sir. She was."

"Good. Well, it doesn't surprise me. It's tried to stop me before."

"The demon has?"

"It knows I'm close. It knows I'm gonna kill it. Not just exorcise it or send it back to hell—actually kill it."

Dean paused his attempts to treat me, turning to look at Dad, "How?"

Dad smiled, "I'm workin' on that."

"Dean, Poughkeepsie." Dean turned back to me, focused on my eyes this time, rather than trying to untie bandages that were best left in place until we could get rid of the demons that were just hovering in the doorway, waiting for something.

I tried my best not to glance their way, not to give away that I could see them there. I stared at Dean trying to communicate silently.

Meg had laid a trap, it had been Dad she'd wanted, and here Dad was. The daeva wouldn't wait much longer, I had to warn them now!

"Listen, Sammy, last time we were together, we had one hell of a fight."

"Yes, sir."

"It's good to see you again. It's been a long time."

"We got something stuck to our shoe. Poughkeepsie is a real crazy town."

Dean's eye's went from narrowed in confusion to wide and dived for the bag of weapons that Sam had dropped when he'd entered the room.

Too late! A daeva attacked Dad and Sam, the other catching Dean before he reached the weapons and flung him across the room.

One of the daeva was holding Dad pined against a cabinet, hunkered over him it was scratching at him and its features seemed to distort further in glee as the blood started to trickle down his chest. The other had stepped after Dean, throwing him across the room again before I stepped into its path, raising a little silver blade I'd pulled from a boot. It was fast, but the adrenaline shooting through my veins allowed me to ignore my injuries for now, jabbing my little silver knife into it's arm.

It looked down, and I pulled the knife back, jabbing again and hitting it in the chest this time. It seemed to grin at me before it backhanded me with enough force to lift me off my feet and throw me clear across the room.

"Shut your eyes!" Came Sam's shout. "These things are shadow demons, so let's light 'em up!" A fizzling noise and smell of burning metal indicated a flare had been lit and I squeezed my eyes shut as bright white light lit up the room around us.

I could feel the pain and anger of the daeva as the light seemed to burn them away. Then Sam was grabbing my arm and pulling me to my feet. Helping me to stagger through the increasing smoke to the doorway. A glance behind showed Dean silhouetted, Dad's arm slung over his shoulder.

We staggered down to the car, and Sam slung the weapons duffel he'd grabbed into the back seat. "All right, come on. We don't have much time. As soon as the flare is out, they'll be back."

"Wait, wait, wait! Sam, wait." Dean turned to Dad, a pained look on his face, "Dad, you can't come with us."

"What? What are you talkin' about?" Sam wasn't following Dean's logic, and I was barely following anything, black starting to cloud my vision once more.

"You boys—you're beat to hell." Dad reached out slightly, and I reached back, taking his hand and drawing his pain away, the energy helping to clear my head a little.

"We'll be all right." Dean assured him.

"Dean, we should stick together." Sam protested, "We'll go after those demons—"

"Sam! Listen to me! We almost got Dad killed in there. Don't you understand? They're not gonna stop. They're gonna try again. They're gonna use us to get to him. I mean, Meg was right. Dad's vulnerable when he's with us. He—he's stronger without us around."

"Dad-no." Sam reached out, grasping at Dad's shoulder, "After everything- after all the time we spent looking for you—please. I gotta be a part of this fight."

"Sammy, this fight is just starting. And we are all gonna have a part to play. For now, you've got to trust me, son." Dad tried to reassure him, "Okay? You've gotta let me go."

There was a moment where I didn't know if someone was gonna start yelling, or if someone was gonna cry, and then Sam let go of Dad's shoulder, patting once before pulling back. Dad nodded once at Sam, then once at Dean, he turned to me and I nodded at him. Yes, of course I would take care of them, I always do.

He pulled away, turning back just before he got into his truck to drive away. "Be careful, boys."

"Come on." Dean lowered himself to the driver's seat and I negotiated my leg, weaker now the adrenaline was fading, into the back seat. Sam and a first aid kit joined me.

Dean sped out of the alley. Only once we were leaving the city did he speak up. "You could see the daeva, couldn't you?"

"Yeah. Ugly, twisting shadows. I think Sam's flare killed them." I spoke through gritted teeth as Sam was pressing against the field bandage on my leg.

"Dean, we need to get to somewhere we can treat her, she's losing more blood."

Darkness was creeping into my vision again, black spots that were growing larger until the world faded away. Painkillers don't work on me, so I usually welcome any opportunity to be unconscious while injured, especially when I know that my brothers are here; they'll keep me safe.


End file.
